Yeah, the delay on the big flagship reviews even makes a fast published like this one pretty pointless, as it only compares data with 2015 devices. And we've officially passed the 2016 summer solstice! Rage! \o/
Quick turnaround, excellent review, much appreciated.
Shame about the graphics display. I'm in the market, and as you say, a good display would make the phone almost a no-brainer, but instead their choices have more or less removed the phone from contention for me. Hopefully OnePlus rapidly makes good on their promise to update the display. I'll be watching for an update to your review.
Small error on the Display page: I really don’t have anything else to say here, as I’m just so frustrated by OnePlus’s choices here,
Sorry, the display is only a secondary concern for me. I'm much more concerned about the software and the updatability of the Oxygen OS. This device would be ideal as a Nexus phone, but no, that's too much to ask for.
On the flip side I think sticking with 1080 is the right thing to do for a whole lot of reasons.
Not pentile, though, not on this low resolution... for an ips this would be sufficient but the power usage advantage on amoled is far less and with less subpixels it really looks bad.
I'm currently running a Note 3, which has a 5.7" 1080p pentile AMOLED screen. I *can* see the subpixels, but it also doesn't bother me. I'd much rather take the better GPU performance/battery life improvements (although we don't appear to be getting this latter one with the OnePlus 3). For the price, I think this is an excellent trade off.
I'm all for getting even 4k and 8k screens into phones, but not until the GPU and battery trade offs aren't there. And to be honest, until we're pretty much back to a week long battery life, I say stick to the 1080p screen! I'd also be much more interested in seeing Android move up to 120fps for general usage, as it would reduce the screen latency a bit too and make things feel so much better.
The colour accuracy, or lack thereof, is a concern. The Dash Charger wouldn't bother me if there was still QuickCharge enabled (so you have choice) , but at this point, I think there's enough positives to give the phone a try and see if I can live with it. The price point is very keen and I can't afford to blow £500+ on a phone, so £309 for flagship performance and a decent (if not market leading) camera are enough for that price. Ideally I'd still also like microSD and a removable battery, but I think for this price, I'll settle ;)
Excellent review! So basically, this is a HTC One M9 clone (aesthetics) with current flagship specs and a bad screen. I am somewhat sensitive to the green tint from pentile Amoleds (S6 was horribly green, S7 still a hint), so the screen on this alone is a dealbreaker. Good to know.
It saddens me 1+ did this to a device that boasts having 6GB of RAM. Before tweaking the max app count is 20. 20!? Shameful! Y'all remember the OPX having issues of performance cuz they LIED of having a 801 snapdragon AB version, but really it was an AA? smh.
If too lazeh; 1) root, get build prop editor 2) search for ro.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=20 and change to a number no more than 60 3) enjoy, spread the word!
why don't you put the old HTC one m7 to the low light test with these phones, i still think their support for low noise levels even at a much higher ISO is a feature that many companies can't offer now.
I know you guys are pretty touchy about the s7 review, but deleting my comment? There's really no room for criticism? Even when you guys screwed up and are months late with the second half of the review? You guys just gonna wipe it under the rug and pretend it never happened? Really professional, you just lost the very last bit of respect I had for this site.
Could you plz explain why you have "time" for smartphone review after review without completing the promized Samsung S7/Edge review (yes the part-2 a lot of people seems to be waiting for) ?
I know I keep saying the same thing each time this comes up, but our smartphone team is four different editors in different parts of the world (West coast, Canada, Europe, Central), and have different schedules (only one is full time).
Your requests aren't falling on deaf ears, trust me. I'm pushing internally on this stuff too, as well as trying to catch up on my own promised articles on the CPU/motherboard side.
The s7 review is 3 MONTHS late. Tons of other sites have found time to finish reviews, yet anandtech cant? The late GPU reviews as well, are painting a very poor picture. Where are the 1080 and 1070 reviews? Or heck, what about that 960 review that never came out? Or that macbook pro 13 review that was promised and never came out?
If you dont have enough people to fix this issue, hire more writers. Or hire full time writers and not part time ones. Or have the other sites assist with the reviews. This lame "oh our writers are part time, nothing we can do" excuse is rapidly wearing out its welcome.
Bragging that your phone has 6GB of RAM, while knowing that you gimped it so that it doesn't utilized it is pure insanity. The co-founder has gone on record saying this was intentional to save battery (yet the put a smaller battery in). I would have thought that the flack that Samsung received last year over their aggressive RAM management would have given OnePlus pause, but it's almost like they don't even have their finger on the pulse of the mobile industry. Let's face it: Price or not, this is more of an enthusiast device than anything and the enthusiasts were very loudly condemning the aggressive RAM management phones last year. They had to know this was going to blow up in their faces. I'm glad there's an easy fix. Heck, you couldn't even root most models of the GS6 to fix the issue, but it never should have shipped this way.
They should have included a brighter screen or an sd card slot instead of wasting resources on more RAM. Another proof that many android smartphone vendors chase superfluous paper specs instead of addressing issues that the users really have.
'The OnePlus 2 and the OnePlus 3 both use USB Type-C connectors, but they only implement the USB 2.0 protocol so there's no support for USB Power Delivery either.'
The power specifications have nothing to do with the supported USB protocol, this sentence is false. In fact, both the Nexus 5X as well as the Nexus 6P do not support USB 3.
Where are my subpixels! And the microSD and what's with the display's accuracy, that home button and design? That aside, the RAM management is the funniest thing ever. You got 6GB but you are not allowed to use it as only 3-4 apps are allowed to stay open. Pricing is not great compared to OP1, this one is a lot less value considering.
The devices you guys include in the charts make you seem partial. You include few last gen devices and that has to be on purpose as you don't usually do that.
Fast charging related ,Mediatek just did a demo in China for their Pump Express 3.0, they had a 5.8V/6A charger (so 34.8W) and got to 83% in 27 mins- the marketing claims 70% in 20mins.
Depends on how you manage heat and how far you push it. Take a 3500mah battery, never charge above 90% and even if you charge it to 75% in 15 min and trickle from there to the 90% you will be fine from a life expectancy perspective I bet.
I think you've made a mistake... On the first page you stated multiple times that the oneplus 2 has a microsd card slot but it doesn't... It only has dual sim.
Any chance of doing some audio benchmarking as well when reviewing smartphones? I'm specifically referring to audio-quality for headphones/earphones, since many (most) people use their phones as media player these days. Phones vary in capabilities vastly, from Vivo X-play5 with a DAC that costs 40$ on its own to many other flagships using a basic Qualcomm codec.
We did some in the past, when Audio Precision let us borrow the $50k+ kit needed to do some proper testing. However, AP wanted the hardware back and Chris is no longer at AnandTech. If someone can convince AP to long-term loan us the hardware, I'm sure one of our smartphone team would pick up the mantle for the devices they test (and because the team is four people, it would only be tested on 1/4 of devices unless we get duplicates or can hand some off when people travel internationally for events. It also means you'd be lucky to see release day data, and we might have to do audio focused testing. But that all depends if we can get the hardware.)
Thanks for the response. Yeah, sounds like a challenge and a half. I am aware of the past audio testing, which is why I was hoping for more. Maybe a more practical approach would be to send one person to a partnered lab and run a gauntlet test on all phones released in that year... like a shootout, maybe.
Yeah, I'm no longer here but the equipment made to do that level of audio testing is incredibly expensive. I live down the street from Audio Precision so I could borrow it, but most people testing audio quality are using gear with noise levels that are high enough that you can't trust the testing unfortunately.
So provide 6GB RAM, then make the software aggressively cull its use to save energy?
Apart from future proofing (and to be real, it'll probably run out of Android updates well before 3/4GB would be a limit), that seems rather pointless.
I'd hope like the author hopes that an over the air update would address that, but if the founder said it was to save energy, maybe it's just an intentional choice they'll keep around until 6GB makes any sort of sense in a phone (which again, is probably outside of the usable life of this one).
That said, I think they're generally back on track which is nice. The Oneplus One was a hit, the Two was a miss, this seems closer to the One competitively.
So 10 months after launch, much closer to the launch of the 7 now than the 6S, the NVMe storage solution is still pooping all over everyone elses, huh? The OP3 is the closest to bridging the gap on reads, but still a whole 128MB/s behind, and much further in writes (which are cool particularly for app installs - I barely see the install icon anymore after the download).
I'm curious, is it *because* of NVMe? It doesn't seem like it should be, I mean NVMe is awesome but mainly reduces the AHCI latencies and gives a stupid amount of in flight queues that consumers probably don't approach often. Is it just how many channels Apple gives their NAND? Is there a limit to how much UFS 2.0 can scale up?
All this said, on the flip side, NVMe seems to take a hit in 4KB random reads/writes, with Samsungs controller overtaking the 6S there, among some others.
Hm, I see the author also suggests it's because the 6S was the 128GB model. I guess I had assumed they'd all perform the same, despite always knowing larger SSDs usually do better due to more channels.
Now I want to test a 16GB 6S to see how the storage fares. What test is used?
I recall some of the early generations of SSDs had 4K random read/write performance as a culprit for why they would freeze up for a second in worst case situations on a PC, and increasing the random performance was found to be an important metric back then as much as if not more than sequential transfers.
However I do wonder at what point of 4K random read/write performance increases is where it will no longer provide any extra kick to most consumer workloads, while hopefully the OS is writing app binaries in nice sequential rows for app launch reads. Going down to 4KB reads would still very much be a very worst case scenario.
I feel like the reviewer reviewed this device as on-par with other premium/flagship devices that literally cost twice as much and not take into account the device's cost. And I'm not talking about just mentioning the cost itself here. The question should be if devices that cost less(and we're really talking about 1/2 the price of any flagship, with literally the same hardware) should be reviewed differently. Now, by differently I don't mean with different or lower standards ,but maybe with the knowledge that this device is clearly cheaper than other flagships devices for a reason. Something had to be cut back. If the display was premium as well, that device wouldn't been able to get to a 399$ price mark and make a profit (only makes sense). So if it's not reaaally crucial I'd say it's a slight issue but not one to make you not purchase the phone. Basically I'm just saying all of this because the last 3 paragraphs really dished the device into making it seem like a no-buy right now to anyone that doesn't want to suffer from a really bad display (again, this is how it sounds to a non-technical guy that just wants a smartphone). Furthermore, as you mentioned, you are a pro reviewer and have different standards, that maybe do not imply to regular users? Yes, you've mentioned it(very slightly), but saying something like you won't replace your old low end phone for this one just because of the display makes it sound probably worse than it is(or actually, the worse it can be: ''but for anyone who cares even the slightest bit the issues with the OnePlus 3’s display will be too severe to live with.''). I'd recommend providing the device for some day to day users/family members and asking if they enjoy the display.
With all of that said, I think that companies that are trying to do things differently for the better or to be cheap on the consumers expense (like Samsung, Apple, and basically any other that charges double the amount for the same hardware or charges premium prices every year for the same old battery's and storage- which Xiaomi showed us with the Redmi note 3 pro that a 4000 battery is possible with a 200$ or less phone) should be praised. Only god knows why reviewers provide each year an A grade score for the Galaxy's and Iphone's when they don't even provide bigger batteries which is clearly out of making us buy their next phones again next year. I'd bash them, and not OP or Xiaomi for trying to provide more for less. just my 2 cents
Regarding the last line - what I mean is that even if those companies flagships have slight bumps they should still be highly recommended for the sake of maybe making other big companies charge less for their phones (which they obv can do if this one costs 400$), or provide more for that same amount of money. They don't innovate because we just don't give them enough hard time for providing the same phone every year but with just more gimmicks, and not practical things like battery sizes and storage
If they really want to help consumers save money, they should've gone with 3GB of RAM and keep the same $349 price tag. That extra 3GB is mostly for show at the moment (except maybe when you're playing 3D games).
again, going for the one that tried to do something good. why not take the argument to apple for having only 2GB (or 1!!!!!) up until a year ago or to Samsung (and of course, Apple again) for keeping the batteries at a pathetic 2000-3000~ mark when they can provide much more if they wanted?
''why 6'' is a worse argument than ''why only 2''.
(speaking about ram now) Because, in case you havent noticed, the iPhones up until last year, didnt need more than a gig of ram, and still perform great with 2gigs, so why increase BOM and power usage for silly specs?
As for the batteries, these are very much parts that are dependent on the design of a phone. Sure they could slap in a 6000mAh battery into the next Galaxy, but then people like you, if not you, would be complaining here taht the phone is heavy and feels like a brick. I personally dont have a problem with smaller batteries/ram amounts/resolutions if it doesnt compromise the user experience. and speaking from a perspective of an iPhone SE owner, the lower resolution screen is not noticable, the low battery capacity provides me more usable time than any Galaxy S device ive had before, and multitasking is faster and much less disruptive than it has ever been, despite "only" 2 gigs of RAM.
So why bash them for stupid "features"? Because either they could not include them, and save money, or not include them, adn spend that money on something that really matters, like a better screen, or atleast in factory calibration of what they have now.
The claim that iPhones like the 6, didn't need more than 1GB, even last year, is just BS. I had iphones with 1GB of RAM, and the apps and the tabs inside the web browsers kept reloading without any warning, sometimes losing data all the time. Yes, Apple did clever things to make sure the phone doesn't literally run out of memory, but multitasking was horrible. Moreover, It's truly ridiculous that a former flagship phone like iPhone 6 is no longer future proof, even though it's only two years old.
there's a difference between "having 6GB of RAM" and "having 6GB but only limiting usage to something lower." what oneplus is doing is simply limiting RAM usage on the kernel level to something lower than 6; if that's the case, why have 6GB of RAM at all? what's the point if I pay for 6GB but can't use all of it at my will? oneplus said they are doing to save battery, but if that's the case why not just take off 2GB and use that money for a bigger battery? "why 6" isn't the argument here, it's "why 6 when only use 4?"
Because iOS functions differently. Android keeps apps open, and running, when you aren't using them, when they don't need to, absorbing RAM, processor cycles and battery power. Except for apps that need to do work in the background, iOS doesn't keep them open. Sometimes I have 50 apps in the que, but they're not actually open. The state of the apps are kept, and when we go to them again, it seems as though they were open.
But iOS keeps killing the apps and reloading the web browser tabs so aggressively that it really affects the usability. The 1GB iPhones are getting pretty much useless to me right now, because all they spend most of their time on, seemingly, is to reload the web browser tabs, silently, sometimes losing my data. I never run into such issues with the Android phones with 2GB of memory. What iOS did was simply a hack to hide the facts that iPhone 6 shipped with an inadequate amount of RAM.
2-3GB of RAM is more than adequate. But 6GB is pretty much ridiculous. Ask any power-user or any price conscious user, and they would probably tell you that they would gladly trade the 3GB of Oneplus 3's RAM for better screen or an sd card slot or more battery life. 6GB is pretty much superflous at this point.
RAM is cheap though, as you can see by the glut of sub 300 USD phones from China with 3/4 GB RAM and weak processors. Even phones with a processor as weak as the Mt 6753 have 3GB at least these days. That extra 3 gb should no have added all that much to the bom, especially compared to the SOC and Display.
Companies who gimp on RAM do it because they want to create sub segments and not because it adds a lot to the bom.
In any case, 2GB is more than sufficient for anything in Android, anything above is a waste. I dont need 100 apps in memory, no thanks. 6 GB is ridiculous overkill imho.
Sadly, in the world of Android the competition has forced the companies to start hyping the features nobody asked for, such as QHD screens, octa-core processors, and now I guess RAM (6GB of it, no less). At the same time, the Android vendors often fail to deliver features people really wanted, such as better battery life, quality screens (as in good brightness and black levels, at least), sd card slots, unlocked wireless bands, and single-core performance that could match at least the three year old Snapdragon 800/801 at an affordable price.
I seem to recall them highly lauding the Moto-G, and even the Moto-E. Your complaints are largely invalid, as they do take price into account. They are technical reviewers, if they started every sentence with a caveat about price it would be unbearable reading. "Xiaomi showed us with the Redmi note 3 pro that a 4000 battery is possible with a $200 or less phone".
Then go buy the Xiaomi. If you think that phone is the bee's knees then vote with your wallet. If a massive battery is the sole important factor in your phone purchasing then your search is over! For the rest of us, it's nice to see the technical analysis and decide for ourselves what amount of compromise is worth the cost savings.
FWIW I am on my 2nd Nexus 5 because no company has made anything since that is a better value. I get the value proposition, I do.
You obviously didn't understand the argument, sir. The point was that if even a low end cheap Chinese phone can have better batteries, than huge companies can include them too. But they don't. So why is that?
Maybe because there are no employee protections in China? Maybe because there are no real consumer protections in China? The cost of doing business as a Chinese company is a fraction of the cost of doing business in the EU or the US. There is a reason most Chinese products don't get sold in either of those two markets, and it isn't just patent/copyright laws. You might as well ask yourself why you can buy 10 Chinese t-shirts for the same price of one US made t-shirt. BOM is not static between nations.
You do realize that the IPhone is made in China right? ..You missed it again: the correct answer was that those companies are being cheap on us consumers, even on their premium priced flagships because they want to keep making billions of dollars of revenue per quarter (not even talking yearly!!). they can provide 64GB as base storage and 4000+ batteries as minimum. They just don't want to.
Ah, you're missing the point. Quality manufacturers all pay about the same thing for the same things. A screen may be made by one manufacturer, but their customers may spec a lower, or higher quality for brightness, speed, color quality, contrast, power draw, and other matters.
The same thing is true for everything else. There are higher quality batteries, and lower quality batteries. The better ones may last for 1,000 recharges, and the cheaper ones may just last 500. Storage is, again, the same. Apple obviously uses higher quality NAND, hence the much higher speeds. It's been said elsewhere too. When making cheaper phones, compromises must be made. Not spending the money to calibrate a screen is a factor that we see here. Even if they come out with an sRGB update, without calibrating each screen, it will still look pretty bad. Cheaper components and fewer features are the way to go. How a manufacturer balances that all out is the differentiating factor.
Here are a few reasons why the display is the single most important part of a smartphone- 1. You stare at it all day long. 2. The image that you see while taking a photo is expected to be the same as when you print it out or share to a friend. 3. You will be able to enjoy content the original creator intended.
I mean, if a phone didn't have a working display it would not be usable. The screen needs to be good. They mention the caveats to this judgment in the review, but obviously it's pretty bad ...
Why do you think that 400USD is not enough money for the vendor to deliver a quality screen? In fact, the vendors have gotten quite lazy recently. The 600+ USD prices were artificially inflated to herd the consumers into signing the multi-year cellular plans so they got big discounts on hardware. Now that the heavy discounting of the locked carrier-branded smartphones by the carriers is nearly gone, I don't know what's going to keep justifying the 500-600USD prices on the flagship phones when a phone like Nexus 5X offers 90% of functionality, at 40 percent discount. The Nexus 5X normally sold for well under 400USD. It had a great display and great camera, and was basically a good all-around phone. Yes, the SoC was slower than that in OP3, but that issue affected most phones of the 5X generation.
Cyanogenmod is already available for the OP3. Im using it on the OP2 and with a custom kernel which mitigates a lot of issues with the OP2. You guys didn't talk much about development support. OP3 kernel sources and device trees (very rare) were released on day one. I can tune color profiles using kcal by savoca, but I'm not sure how to do that without a colorimeter. So what I'm asking is, can custom Roms and kernel fix the display accuracy?
Talking about dev support in a review is simply ridiculous. A good product should be good as it is out of the box, dev support is an additional plus, not a solution to its faults
You can't personally calibrate these displays because Android has no color management. There is no place for software to put, and use, a color profile for the display. The manufacturer does it, and adds it to the OS with custom code. If a calibrator manufacturer were to offer calibration with their equipment, it would require a special app to be used, only within that app would the profile work. Everything else would remain the same.
But, it's worse. Since there is no color management, you need the device to be connected to a computer that does have color management. Then you download an app for your phone, and turn it on. Tou connect your phone to the computer. The app in your computer detects that that app is working when you tell it its on. It then reads from what the app in the phone is doing, and stores that info on your computer. Afterwards, it transfers that info to the special app in your phone. When you open that app in the phone, you can direct it to your picture storage, and view the pictures from within the app. That's about it.
Not very satisfactory? Yup! To fix all of this, Alphabet needs to add color management to Android. But there doesn't seem to be any interest to do this from them, and it does need to be an integrated OS level call.
My colleague just received the One Plus 3 and I can compare it to my iP6s+ and another colleagues Nexus 5x. OP3 is amazing piece of HW, more beautiful than my iPhone (N5X looks like a toy!) and although it has the same size of the display, it is slimmer, smaller and lighter in total. The touch sensor is blazing fast, just as the charging. UI looks stock (read "fine, I like it"). 64GB and 6GB RAM are enough for everything. I was very surprised by that phone even before I knew how cheap it is! I'm really curious what will be the reaction of other Android manufacturers.
How can one exaggerate that much about the phone display? Its not even true that its supposedly one of the worst displays around. Been using the phone for about one week now. The screen is fine, ofcourse it can't compete with a galaxy s7 or iphone 6s. Hence, those devices cost double the price. My colleagues also think the screen is fine, great colors and for sure better than the OP1/2.
And how come other reviews don't mention how 'bad' the display is? This is the first review which has such complaints about the display.
Not to mention I call BS on his entire statement. You really sit around the water cooler with your colleagues discussing the screen quality of your phone? You discuss how great the colors are? Unless you work for a mobile phone manufacturer, you are either lying or the most boring guy in the office.
I work at an IT company. Talking about new tech on a daily basis. So why would it be BS? Who wouldn't discuss their brand new phone and its performance? That aside, I'm curious why most of the people that review the phone are positive about the display? They are all lying? I agree its not the best out there. Yet saying its a poor display is just wrong.
I am not a big display quality nut, but the two things I really care about is max brightness and black levels, which basically means that I expect the screen to look good to an untrained eye, either outdoors or in the dark. So it is disappointing to see that Oneplus 3 has max brightness about on the level of Asus Zenfone 2. A lot of people thought this was not even acceptable on a 200-300 dollar device which Zenfone 2 was, but for a 400USD 2016 "flagship killer" it's ridiculous.
If you call the OnePlus 3 display poor, then I think you have to call the Galaxy S7 display poor as well because by default its display is no more accurate than the OnePlus 3 display. You have to change the display mode from adaptive to basic to make the S7 display accurate, which let's be honest, only about 0.1% of people who buy the S7 do that. I think Anandtech needs to start publishing display measurements using the default display settings as they come out of the box, because that's what 99.9% of people will use and see when they buy the phone. I'm fine with including measurements of the basic mode as well, but I don't think it should be the only measurements shown. The default settings should be measured and discussed considering that's how most people, even enthusiasts who read this site, will use it.
You have the option and if you care about accuracy you will use it.
Avrg people like colors to poop but once you show them how the colors should look (specially when white/black/greyscale are involved) they dont look back after switching to "basic".
The screen is not better than the OnePlus One at all. There's no subjectivity here, these are purely objective measurements. If someone enjoys that a display shows completely inaccurate gaudy colors and has a severely blue-shifted white point, there's nobody trying to stop them from enjoying it.
An analogy: I enjoy The Room, but I would never try to argue that it's an objectively high quality film on the basis that I enjoy it. You can enjoy a display with poor image rendition, but that doesn't make it good.
While we're complaining about gaudy colors and shifted white points, I would like to request that Anandtech start publishing display measurements for the default display modes of phones. For example, the Galaxy S and Note lines and the Nexus 6P both ship with displays with gaudy colors and shift white points but default, but we never see those measurements, but just the measurements after you have set them to sRGB mode. The problem with that is that 99.9% of people who buy those phones leave the display settings at the default. I would bet you cold hard cash that even the majority of Anandtech readers leave the display settings at default. And so now we have a bunch of people running around claiming "Anandtech said my phone has like the most accurate display, dude", but then I look at their phone, and uhhh, no. They are using the default display mode and have been mislead into thinking those colors are accurate. I realize that most Anandtech readers aren't dumb enough to pull that, but the problem is, when Anandtech publishes its findings, a bunch of other news outlets come along and say "Anandtech and DisplayMate say this phone displays the most accurate colors ever", but conveniently leave off the part about have to change settings for that to be true. I'm not saying you should test and publish the results in the sRGB modes. You should. I'm just saying you should ALSO publish the results for the default display settings for a device. And if the accuracy sucks at the default settings, you should call it out and complain about it a bit, even if there is an sRGB setting buried in developer options somewhere. You can tell me the Galaxy S7 has a more accurate display than the iPhone 6S all you want, but if I run meet two people when I'm out and one has an S7 and one has a 6S, guess which one is going to be more accurate 99.9% of the time?
You are simply not getting something - display accuracy has very little to do with sRGB color space itself. sRGB is a relatively dull, limited colorspace that defines collors far bellow what human eyes can see and it only exists because wider gamut was problematic to achieve on pre-OLED displays. AdobeRGB (that OLEDs can reach) is far richer, vibrant closer to life color space.
Personally, I would never use modern, wide-gamut OLED display in crippled sRGB mode that essentially limit panel ability do render deep, saturated colours, it is just not 'fun'. Many of these colors are just UI elements, icons, etc - they look much nicer with wide gamut. Yes, I cannot believe that Android still does not have any form of color management built in and think it is a total disgrace. As a result, the cost of using full abilities of wide gamut displays is that photos (typically designed to be shown on sRGB display) will look oversaturated, even if they are embedded with proper sRGB/AdobeRGB profile, as Android simply have no way to process it. However, to be fair, I a can live with this - I am not a photographer and do not need accurate saturation in photos on my mobile.
But to the point: AdobeRGB (that many OLEDs target) is essentially extension of sRGB, so on OS that does not understand color management, photos with sRGB profile would simply look more saturated - but the colors would be still accurate (i.e certain share of red would be still the same shade, just more intense). NTSC that Oneplus 3 panel seems to target is a different gamut, that is 'shifted' in space (look at CIE graphs), so for instance orange might become red - and this is a problem.
Additionally, there is another aspect of accuracy: balance of individual primary colours at various intensity steps (so called 'greyscale') - and this is quite broken in Oneplus 3 too (yes, I have got one) - blue is dominating heavily pretty much all the intensity steps.
Combined with a very high color temperature ('balance' option in the UI does not help much, it just adds hideous pink hue) and low ~800p real resolution thanks to pentile pattern (with all the artifacts like diamond-shaped fill and color fringing at hight contrast edged) the result is simple - the display is objectively very bad.
My point of reference is to N6P panel, which is absolutely gorgeous, accurate and ultra sharp in comparison. It is a shame, as otherwise phone is great (build quality, SoC, fast storage), but looking at the screen is just too painful for me - so I am sending it back.
I understand that possibly less than 1% really care about quality of the display, but I am one of those people and totally agree with the reviewer here.
You've missed my point entirely, which was to request that Anandtech provide measurements for displays as they are calibrated out of the box. By default, the Galaxy S7 and Nexus 6P are just as bad, calibration wise, as the OnePlus 3. They are not calibrated to any standard. Not sRGB, not Adobe RGB. Yes there are sRGB modes on both the S7 and 6P, which are what Anandtech tests and publishes results for, and there is also an Adobe RGB mode for the S7, but when you take those phones out of the box, the calibration of each is truly awful, just like the OnePlus 3. Uhg, and you're acting like the 6P has some great panel. God, the 6P screen is sharp and accurately calibrated (in sRGB mode), sure, but it has a horrible grainy look to it and has awful sunlight visibility in sRGB mode (sunlight visibility in the default inaccurate mode is fine, but it's truly terrible in sRGB mode). I own an S7 Edge, OnePlus 3, and Nexus 6P because I'm an Android app developer, so I can compare them all side by side here.
You are missing my point too: 6P in default mode is fine - it targets colour space similar to AdobeRGB, so colors are just more saturated, but they are still the same colors. There is no reason to use sRGB mode on 6P (as you mentioned it impacts maximum brightness badly - like any color curve adjustment) unless you are a photographer and work with sRGB photos on your workstation - by using sRGB mode you are simply crippling display capability to show wide gamut.
Oneplus 3 is different, by default it targets odd gamut that actually shitfs colors and make them very different colors - this does not happen 6P. Not to mention terrible white balance and greyscale, which is just fine on 6P in non-sRGB mode. Grainy look on 6P display: is this a joke? Maybe with some dodgy screen protector. It is one of the sharpest, cleanest displays and makes Oneplus 3 look absolutely terrible in comparison.
"colors are just more saturated, but they are still the same colors"
What? Not to me. If you take a color and make it way more saturated, it is not the same color. I guess you're saying green will still be green, etc, but just more saturated. I get that. But it still makes photos look untrue to life if the colors are all oversaturated. And even if I accept your explanation for the 6P, what about the S7 and Note 5? The default adaptive mode on those phones is NOT sRGB nor Adobe RGB. It's Samsung's made up colors that they think look good and it's no better than what we see on the OnePlus 3. If Anandtech would test these modes we would see that, which is why I want Anandtech to start testing and discussing them.
maybe because other so called "reviews" don't even have a colorimeter to properly test displays? subjectively saying "oh it looks good to me" doesn't mean much to everyone
The display is only 'bad' from a color accuracy standpoint. I actually have the phone, and also own a Galaxy S7 Edge and Nexus 5X. Subjectively, if you hand a random person on the street all three of these phones, they would probably say the OnePlus 3 display looks the best. The Nexus 5X is technically the most accurate, but looks washed out next to the other two to your average person who doesn't deal with color accurate displays for a living. The S7 Edge (mine anyways) has whites that lean too much towards green, so it looks kind of unnatural. I thought the lower resolution of OnePlus 3 would bother me because the display is pentile, but honestly, the screen density it set such that I never bring the phone close enough to my face to notice. Also, while I don't have a measurement device, I think the white balance of my OnePlus 3 is not as cool as the one Anandtech received. Comparing it to other phones, I would guess my sample is more in the 7500K range. Brandon also seems to have missed the color temperature slider in the display settings. I wonder if he had adjust the color temperature a bit warmer if the color measurements would have been a little better.
Oh, I forgot to mention, if you like how the Galaxy S6, S7 and Note 5 displays look in their default adaptive display mode, you will probably like how the OnePlus 3 display looks because it looks very similar to that. Unfortunately, Anandtech and everyone else only test the color accuracy of Samsung displays after changing the display mode to basic / sRGB, which almost no one uses in reality. So you will hear the Galaxy S7 display is suuuupppppeeeerrrr accurate, blah, blah, blah!!! But if you go out and survey actual Galaxy S7 owners on the street, 99.9% of them will be using the default display setting that is not accurate at all and probably no more accurate than the OnePlus 3 display, yet people still say it looks great. So bottom line, don't write of the OnePlus 3 because Anandtech hates the display.
it's ok, we get it, you are trying to defend your purchase. Idk if you have read any of those reviews you mentioned so far (probably not as you are still saying these), but in N6P review they clearly gave out results for both profiles. also what you are forgetting is that this is not simply a color profile issue, 1+ just straight up didn't calibrate these panels out of the box. what people like is different from what something objectively is. you can like the 1+3 and its poorly calibrated panels, but that doesn't change the fact that the panel is inaccurate. there's a reason why these standards exist, and just because you don't like the standard doesn't mean it's important.
Why would I need to defend my purchase? I own a Galaxy S7 edge and will be keeping it as my main phone and returning the OnePlus 3. I only bought a OnePlus 3 because I am an Android app developer and phone enthusiast and just like trying all of the new phones. That's great that they gave out results of both profiles for the 6P, but if I remember correctly, it's only because they tested the default profile before they discovered the sRGB mode. They never test the default profile of Samsung phones. I want them to call Samsung out for shipping phones with displays that are so inaccurate out of the box. Yeah, it's great that Samsung gives you an accurate profile setting, but when you just test that and don't even mention the default profile, it confuses people and makes most people think Samsung displays are accurate right out of the box. Even many reviewers at other popular sites obviously don't know that Samsung displays are onky accurate in basic mode.
there's a reason why these standards exist, and just because you don't like the standard doesn't mean it's important.
Wtf dude? You've got me all wrong. I'm a proponent of sRGB. I like it and wish all phones were calibrated to that standard out of the box. That said, if you're going to completely trash a phone for not being calibrated to sRGB out of the box, you need to trash every phone that isn't calibrated to that out of the box to some extent, but Samsung just throws in an sRGB profile that no real world users even know about and gets away with shipping displays that aren't calibrated to any standard at all by default (cough... adaptive mode)???
You are missing one important factor, Samsung gave out an sRGB option out of the box in their settings. They didn't tell you, and they don't necessarily have to tell you just like how they don't have to tell you that you can uninstall/disable 80% of the junk that came with TouchWiz. However, it is an option that came by default, while I agree it is bs for not actively notifying the user of it, you can still turn it on. More importantly, if you are reading AT's review, then you know what they are using right? So if you read their review and learned that they claim the display is good, you should have already known what settings they are using to get those metrics. So no, AT doesn't have to test the default option if AT tells you that they are using sRGB mode. You as the reader should have known after reading the review, just like when you look at any data you have to first understand how the test is setup. If they don't tell you that, then that's their problem. 1+ straight up had no other options, and the problem itself may not be even fixable with a software update, that's the difference
The difference between other reviews and this one is that the others just look at some pictures on the screen and then write that the colors are very vivid and bright and they "pop". Anandtech measures the picture quality using proper tools instead of just looking at the screen with the naked eye and then saying something vague and subjective. And I'm glad they do, because I don't want a phone that skews colors on the screen. I do more image editing on my phone than on my computer. If the screen is inaccurate, the pictures will look very wrong to others when they look at them on their phones.
Right. I have a Nexus 5 and the grays just pop out because of quality. Now though, I'm itching for Samsung's displays as it will give the best contrast and best late night viewing.
Nobody here interested in Daydream VR? I may not want to shell out hundreds for "is it just a gimmick" VR but I want my next phone upgrade to be Daydream VR compatible, I'll pay ~$100 incremental cost for a VR headset.
I believe ZTE Axon 7 is a "flagship spec at midrange price" phone that is Daydream compatible and "coming soon".
I wonder if Daydream solves positional drift though. Since smartphones have no fixed reference points for VR, they were just approximating movement with the accelerometer and gyro, leading it to "drift" from your heads actual position. I hoped Daydream would solve that, but it seems the headset adds no extra sensors and is still a fancier "dumb" headset like Cardboard.
I don't really care about Daydream, but ZTE Axon 7 seems to address all the shortcomings of the One+ 3.
5.5" 1440p AMOLED (hopefully more accurate) and SD card slot seem like benefits worth paying the extra $50 for. And personally I'd rather see the review for the Axon 7 than the HTC 10 or the part 2 for the S7. Or even the GTX 1080. (runs away from the angry mob)
Just for a record- OnePlus has TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT.
DO NOT BUY if you want to receive decent warranty service.
I have a broken OnePlus2 which I have sent to service center twice. First time they sent it back without any repairs. Second time it took 10 days just to get the shipping label to send it to a different repair center. It has been there for 2 weeks now without any notice of what's going on or if I'll get my phone back in working order or when.
In between all this it takes a long time to get response from the customer support team. They often copy-paste canned responses without even reading what I have said in my ticket. There is now way to call someone and talk in person or at least have an on-line chat- everything is a ticket system where getting a response takes a day or several.
In short, my phone has been broken for 2 months, OnePlus is still to repair it or to send a replacement. I want my money back for experience like this.
This post reflects reasons #1, 2 and 3 why I will not consider a OnePlus device. The cost savings aren't worth it when the customer service is similar to what you would experience with an eBay purchase. This isn't an isolated experience, forums are filled with angry customers who have non-functioning phones and OnePlus ignores the situation.
> There’s basically no use case where you use a phone without looking at the screen, and right from the very first moment I turned on the OnePlus 3 I could tell that the colors are completely wrong.
Except for, you know, talking. :P
That said, I agree with your point - I use my phone more for texting and web browsing than calls, and the awful screen means there's no chance I'll ever buy or recommend it.
You know ever since anand left this site has pretty much gone to shit, no reviews, late reviews as well as shilling for intel. this is why this site has dropped 2000 points ranking -wise in the past year. Keep up the good work @ killing yourselves.
One thing to consider is that OnePlus devices are a breeze to root since the Bootloader can be unlocked simply with a setting. You can't do that with any Samsung these days. Oxygen OS has recently opened up to developers so expect custom roms to be easy as an unofficial CyanogenMod Rom for the OnePlus Two was available easily. While the display has issues, I think it will be an improvement over OnePlus Two. I have trouble reading it in the sun light compared to the Nexus 6P. So, here's hoping that the sRGB setting will be out soon and make the user experience more acceptable. I do like some of the custom touches on the OxygenOS which gives it a custom rom feel in a stock rom.
Amazing review, I never payed much attention to different tech review sites when I googled smart phones and read reviews. But after reading this one, I am wowed. The author so damn knowledgeable and the article so well written, so technical, and well organized, with even a drop down spinner to select the sections. (Unlike other review sites that have pages that you don't know leads to what.). I created an anandtech account just so I could post this comment.
This review just shows how terrible of an SoC the Snapdragon 810 was. Snapdragon 808 is also just as bad, I hate it in my BB PRIV. The 805 would have been a better choice.
Exactly. I'm not sure why, but last year AnandTech spent so much time defending Qualcomm with the SD810/808. And now than Qualcomm has something better in 2016, they go back to criticizing it the 2015 line.
Top tier still camera, better than the ones on iPhones, performance, build quality, battery and battery charge speed, I most certainly will not be using my phone as a reference display nor will I edit sensitive content on it, the saturated look doesn't bother me o most people for that matter, though I get where you are coming from, this is a no brainier for my use case and I'm sure most people fall there.
Now. The real problem, I can only buy through Amazon, yet, the price listed there is $600, what the hell Oneplus. The price difference is absolutely ridiculous, list it at the proper price.
Worth saying, finally a review comes in time, this is appreciated, flagship reviews have been VERY late and untimely to say the least. Sadly, no other site does comparable smartphone reviews.
anatech review getting shittier day by day. last time Brian Klug review was detail in antenna reception and other sort of technical thing. by this type of common review, it is nothing more than gsma.
Still got my OnePlus One and it's working great. I felt the OP2 was completely uninteresting because it was a regression from the OPO in so many ways. The OP3 at least looks like a proper upgrade of everything except the display. If they aren't going to increase the resolution, why not stick with the same proven IPS panel from the OPO, which they know looks good?
Anyway no need to upgrade from my OPO. With Android 5.x, battery life and performance were horrible compared to KitKat, but now that it has got Android 6.x finally, performance and battery life are back to normal levels.
Great review, but I find it funny when you guys say absurd things like 'The phone charges in 1.44 hours.' Um okay, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Can you just write it in a human-readable way?
No kidding? We, humans, however, tend to speak in hours and minutes. Or maybe you go on about your life and tell your friends to meet at 7.89pm? Have some common sense.
Why do you use the incredibly narrow sRGB standard versus AdobeRGB(or NTSC for that matter)?
sRGB is inferior- this is not questionable- it is a point of fact. Anyone who works with real video or photo editing knows this is a garbage standard created for low end devices that couldn't handle the wider color gamuts. You can make the argument on which you should be aiming for, ARGB or NTSC- but championing the- in every single way- inferior sRGB borders on insanity.
When Rec 2020 is the target for new phones are you going to test it using black and white calibration?
Something matching sRGB simply means it is a device aimed at the low end. It is not a good thing. Now if you tested it versus what it claims to be shooting for- NTSC- and it failed to match the standards you would have a compelling argument- as it is you come of as someone who is either utterly clueless, or simply trying to spread misinformation and your preference for low accuracy, low color, low contrast displays.
If you can control the colorspace target from capture to the end device then wider gamuts are better and possible. However the nature of the web is such that you cannot assume that your target device will have the gamut you intend or have proper color management at all. Windows and Android don't support proper color management as an ecosystem so the default fallback is sRGB.
I don't think we claim that sRGB is better, but that it is just what the standard is for most content.
And just to add to that, for displays that actually get reasonably close to an expanded space, we certainly test for that. See our iPad Pro 9.7" review for an example of that.
Going forward, I'm expecting that more mobile devices will support DCI, in which case they'll get the iPad treatment. Conversely however, it doesn't make a ton of sense to test displays against DCI when they aren't actively trying to support it. Since content is authored for sRGB and needs mapped into DCI, treating a device like it's DCI when it's not would in practice harm sRGB as well.
So you'll test if it's an Apple product using a standard created for projectors, OK. The Galaxy Tab S was touted as supporting the Adobe RGB standard- you didn't test that(either generation). This phone said it was shooting for NTSC which is also a wider color standard and one used far more commonly than DCI- also not tested.
At this point we are discussing all outdated standard regardless- Adobe now has their wide gamut standard because even AdobeRGB isn't wide enough, and we have Rec2020 which is another wider color standard. Out of all of these color standards the one you test for is the one made for projectors.... I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this. If not using projector standards- use the lowest common denominator?
The reality is that everyone else seems to think the display looks pretty good- except you who seem to base your assessment entirely around your very narrow personal preference for sRGB. If that's what you like that is fine- passing off what you like as the only right way to do it(outside of using a projector standard for tablets?) isn't very objective.
Not questioning your summation of the display- pointing out that it couldn't be more self obviously biased based on your very narrow standards for what you want in a display. Nothing is wrong with that, but it is very much subjective.
>> So you'll test if it's an Apple product using a standard created for projectors, OK. The Galaxy Tab S was touted as supporting the Adobe RGB standard- you didn't test that(either generation).
iOS supports colour profiles. Android doesn't. Simple as that.
sRGB is NOT our personal preference. We would love to see proper wide gamut support, and when a device supports a different gamut, we test it like we did for the iPad Pro 9.7". But until Android supports color management, testing against sRGB is the only thing that makes sense. A few other points: 1) Most of the content you're going to view on a mobile device uses the sRGB color space, including web pages, games, and even the pictures and video taken with mobile devices.
2) Viewing a file intended for DCI on an iPad Pro 9.7" results in properly rendered colors, because iOS supports color management. Viewing the same file on an Android device with a wide-gamut panel results in innaccurate, oversaturated colors, because Android does not support color management and assumes everything is sRGB. Color space support requires both hardware and software support. The OP3, like almost every mobile device, lacks the software component.
3) Some people prefer these more vivid colors even if they do not match the content creator's intent. That's fine. We even help quantify how vivid the colors will look with our saturation test (each square represents a 20% increase in saturation up to 100% sRGB target), and a visual example with the color swatch.
But until Android supports color management, testing against sRGB is the only thing that makes sense.
I guess you just have a very unique perspective. From a professional perspective this doesn't make sense at all- ICC color profiles are simply one way to handle forced color accuracy, and not a terribly good one at that as GPU overrides of color balance are fairly normal anyway on most devices. From a consumer perspective wanting the least amount of colors possible doesn't make sense in any rational way that I can come up with. Apple's way of handling things gives you two calibration targets- one is the narrowest in use, the other designed for movie projectors. Force decode True Color is a pretty useful option when trying to maximize the range covered.
1)Most content isn't calibrated. Period. Content that has calibration as a very high priority, isn't calibrated using sRGB.
2)When moving from a wider gamut space to a narrower one you deal with truncation, where are you getting that it is going to go through multiple up and down scaled balances? That isn't how it works.
3)You say that's fine, and we see articles spending hundreds of words bashing displays if they don't do it under the most narrowly defined set of parameters imaginable.
The gamut defined in the NTSC standard is over sixty years old, it was never even reproduced properly on the CRT displays of the time because they couldn’t do so with an adequate brightness level, and it was replaced as a “standard” gamut decades ago, having never even been used outside the Americas at all.
Side note- looking at your reported numbers, it appears they were shooting for Japan's NTSC standard as their white point is far closer to that then the US NTSC. I'm not sure where Japan is on your world map, mine obviously looks a little different :)
Would be nice if you guys actually did a real S7 review so we could see a real comparison against this OP3. But no, we have skewed data that really is not relevant at all. Way to go guys!
One question with camera testing. How come you still don't have a studio lab for camera testing? It can help uncover some design compromises. It may not have the value for a consumer purchase decision but it has entertainment value, at least for me.
Thank you for the unbiased review💯 I was really thinking about buying this phone. The display is of the utmost importance to me. My 3 needs,wants or what have you when I'm shopping for a new smartphone follows. Display,chip performance,OS updates. If the display isn't top notch. I'm already turning the page. Which is why I have a Note 5. Just about all other sites are praising this phone. I can always trust Anandtech to do very thorough reviews! Thank You!
It would be really, really good if Anandtech could start listing the LTE bands that a device supports.
The OnePlus 3 for example, has no SKUs which support all of Australian LTE bands, meaning that if you live in Australia, it will give you a very sub-optimal experience, irrespective of which carrier you use.
This is vital information for a smartphone user. It would be great if AT paid a little attention to this.
I just got the OnePlus 3, I honest can't say the screen is bad. It's very similar to the Note 3 screen. I compared them side by side and the Note 3 was brighter that's about it. Both uses Pentile which makes them seem similar. I've used it for a whole day and the phone is just blazingly fast and everything I wanted in a Samsung is here except for the QHD display.
Put the note3 in the calibrated profile "basic" i guess.
When you are using CRT's for 20 years and your current monitor is Trinitron CRT things like the default Galaxy color profile or these one 3 becomes pretty much eye cancer.
I had the Nexus 6P and sold it, I really don't think the OnePlus 3 screen is as bad as this review makes it seems. Every other review says the display is good but not the best. The viewing angle is actually better than the OnePlus 2 as well as the contrast. The screen doesn't cover as much sRGB gamut but it's good enough for avg user.
My phone arrived a few hours ago. I don't have a colorimeter and my eyes are definitely not expert ones, but the screen seems absolutely amazing. Good resolution, good colors, zero flaws...
I understand that the colorimeter says differently, but maybe the our (my...) eyes are not able to see the difference. And maybe it's better like this!
I have to agree, I think the testing done on the screen here is flawed. I have it sitting next to my Nexus 6p in sRGB mode, aside from brightness I'm not seeing much of a difference in color or clarity, certainly not enough to call this the worst screen they have tested.
Unfortunate conclusion, and saying that the screen is the worst out there, really is unfair. The screen is decent, and makes it a very solid option for 99% of potential users. I have it next to my Galaxy Note 4 and the difference is not that massive in comfort and detail. Brightness could have indeed been better (I live in the UK, so... Unfortunately this is not a problem for me. I have a OP3 and couldn't be happier with the tradeoffs : great performance, sexy as hell, solid shooter, half of the Apple price! If money is no objection, you go with the Galaxy S7(+), specs and performance benchmark today. Could have OP made a better phone: sure! It would have been a lost battle to Apple and Samsung marketing machines. They just nailed it with OP3, this is the Nexus that Google should have done. Not beating every other flagship on all counts, but a fantastic all round package. Peace!
BTW, talking about weaknesses, it would have been good to mention the less then perfect palm rejection, the crazy thin bezels (while making the design so appealing) would need some smart touch calibrarion for the edges of the screen. This is for me the first thing OP should tackle in a future update.
I don't understand the rgb and stuff. It's just technical jargons for me. But having used OP3 for few days and having used iPhone 6s for a prolonged time, my conclusion is simple
For a normal guy, the screen is really good. Resolution is good,clarity of images or HD videos are good. And that's what really matters to me.
But yeah max brightness is not upto the mark.
But definitely, display should not be a deal breaker to anyone.
I feel this review is too much biased towards technical superiority on paper and doesn't really show the real world usability
My Oneplus 3 has some issues..the LED customisations doesn't work,My alert slider works but whenever i get a call there is no ringtone no matter whatever settings i select it just vibrates,i think its a bug with Oxygen OS 3.1.2..don't know if any anyone else have the same issue,hope they'll fix it soon!!
OnePlus will be putting out an update soon that will give it sRGB option and memory fix. So I hope this site change their opinion. There are no other smartphone company out there that addresses complaints or opinions this quickly. I've used the phone for 2 days now and compared it side by side with other phones and I honestly can't tell the different that much. It's not as sharp as newer QHD displays but the color and brightness is not as bad as the review makes it seem. It's better than Nexus 6 and not as accurate as the 6P.
Would be good to get a sense of the call reception and qaulity as well. Often discounted yet a very important functionality of the phone nonetheless :)
I think AT should really pay respect to the company for (attempting to) address a review's concerns so quickly. If only all manufacturers listened to reviewers...
That's because the kind of people who read anadtech and slashdot are the only ones who tend to buy Oneplus phones. This is a totally "underground" brand for the USA market, with no OnePlus phones sold in any brick and mortar stores, no TV commercials, etc.
It's hard to make an idea about phones by reading reviews on your site. Besides the fact that reading reviews that are 4 days apart you compare the benchmarked phones to totally different phones there are huge differences, for example: Oneplus 3 review - Samsung galaxy 6 Display - Max Brightness: 335.0 Meizu PRO 5 reviews - Samsung Galaxy 6 Display - Max Brightness: 593.04 That's not a 1-5% let's say difference, that's the difference between a bad and a really good display.
Not, Brandon here, but just wanted to mention that a lot of US-based ebay vendors are having a blowout sale on the Nexus 5X phones, which are sold for as little as 225-240 USD for a new phone. It may be a sign that the inventories are cleared for a new 2016 Nexus smartphone. So even if Oneplus 3 is much better, specially if the newly released OTA fixes the screen accuracy issues, the Oneplus 3 will remain a 400USD phone, while the price of the Nexus 5X has gone down to the level of Moto G (2015), so the price performance is very good.
Hi Brandon! Where did you place the color balance slider (from the display menu) when you measured the OnePlus 3 display calibration? Was it on the left side, or the on the right (the warmer side?)
I really think that you should've used the phones' full potential (by turning low light features on (as HQ mode on the OnePlus 3 and HDR+ on the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6). You should've at least shown them on auto AND with the modes activated. Really good comparison though besides of that!
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Brandon Chester - Sunday, June 19, 2016 - link
I hope everyone is happier with the turnaround on this one c:hans_ober - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Yes we are! I wouldn't mind it being two or more weeks late, but 3 months is inexcusable.theduckofdeath - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Yeah, the delay on the big flagship reviews even makes a fast published like this one pretty pointless, as it only compares data with 2015 devices. And we've officially passed the 2016 summer solstice! Rage! \o/close - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Yes, passing the summer solstice always enrages me and saddens me a little...TheProv - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Why did you reported only sequential speeds and not random speeds too?Ditiris - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Quick turnaround, excellent review, much appreciated.Shame about the graphics display. I'm in the market, and as you say, a good display would make the phone almost a no-brainer, but instead their choices have more or less removed the phone from contention for me. Hopefully OnePlus rapidly makes good on their promise to update the display. I'll be watching for an update to your review.
Small error on the Display page:
I really don’t have anything else to say here, as I’m just so frustrated by OnePlus’s choices here,
jospoortvliet - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I would wait for the effect of sRGB settings but the low resolution on tgis can't be fixed of course....niva - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Sorry, the display is only a secondary concern for me. I'm much more concerned about the software and the updatability of the Oxygen OS. This device would be ideal as a Nexus phone, but no, that's too much to ask for.On the flip side I think sticking with 1080 is the right thing to do for a whole lot of reasons.
jospoortvliet - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Not pentile, though, not on this low resolution... for an ips this would be sufficient but the power usage advantage on amoled is far less and with less subpixels it really looks bad.peterfares - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
PenTile needs to die[-Stash-] - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
I'm currently running a Note 3, which has a 5.7" 1080p pentile AMOLED screen. I *can* see the subpixels, but it also doesn't bother me. I'd much rather take the better GPU performance/battery life improvements (although we don't appear to be getting this latter one with the OnePlus 3). For the price, I think this is an excellent trade off.I'm all for getting even 4k and 8k screens into phones, but not until the GPU and battery trade offs aren't there. And to be honest, until we're pretty much back to a week long battery life, I say stick to the 1080p screen! I'd also be much more interested in seeing Android move up to 120fps for general usage, as it would reduce the screen latency a bit too and make things feel so much better.
The colour accuracy, or lack thereof, is a concern. The Dash Charger wouldn't bother me if there was still QuickCharge enabled (so you have choice) , but at this point, I think there's enough positives to give the phone a try and see if I can live with it. The price point is very keen and I can't afford to blow £500+ on a phone, so £309 for flagship performance and a decent (if not market leading) camera are enough for that price. Ideally I'd still also like microSD and a removable battery, but I think for this price, I'll settle ;)
Sivar - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
4K or 8K on phones?Do you also profess that megapixel count is a good measure of camera quality, or that 96 KHz audio is better than 48KHz?
Pissedoffyouth - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I hope Andrei comes up with his SoC deep dives soon, been a while comingjospoortvliet - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Absolutely and a great review it is... awesome work!deskjob - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Excellent review! So basically, this is a HTC One M9 clone (aesthetics) with current flagship specs and a bad screen. I am somewhat sensitive to the green tint from pentile Amoleds (S6 was horribly green, S7 still a hint), so the screen on this alone is a dealbreaker. Good to know.Any news on the HTC 10 review?
JoshHo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
It will be arriving with the GS7 part 2 review.Roland00Address - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Thank You,But also remember If You Give a Mouse a Cookie ;-)
Meteor2 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
A (timely) phone review! A (timely) phone review!I nearly crapped myself when I logged on.
I'll go and read it now :-). Thank you very much!
zeeBomb - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Just want to mention:https://youtu.be/1fcIZctnRjE - fix for RAM issue
It saddens me 1+ did this to a device that boasts having 6GB of RAM. Before tweaking the max app count is 20. 20!? Shameful! Y'all remember the OPX having issues of performance cuz they LIED of having a 801 snapdragon AB version, but really it was an AA? smh.
If too lazeh;
1) root, get build prop editor
2) search for ro.sys.fw.bg_apps_limit=20 and change to a number no more than 60
3) enjoy, spread the word!
Vishalaestro - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
why don't you put the old HTC one m7 to the low light test with these phones, i still think their support for low noise levels even at a much higher ISO is a feature that many companies can't offer now.Aritra Ghatak - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
What about the uncompleted Galaxy S7 review??Aaight - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
So brandon, what's up with the s7 review, are you guys gonna release that this year? Or are we gonna have to wait for a unfinished s8 review?Aaight - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
I know you guys are pretty touchy about the s7 review, but deleting my comment? There's really no room for criticism? Even when you guys screwed up and are months late with the second half of the review? You guys just gonna wipe it under the rug and pretend it never happened? Really professional, you just lost the very last bit of respect I had for this site.Aaight - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
New to this comment system, thought you'd deleted my first comment. Sorry about the rant..tom5 - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
I'm waiting impatiently for the HTC 10 review - Part 2 :)S007009 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Could you plz explain why you have "time" for smartphone review after reviewwithout completing the promized Samsung S7/Edge review (yes the part-2 a lot of people seems to be waiting for) ?
Anakha - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Same goes for the HTC 10...antifocus - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
It is not like all their smartphone reviews are written by the same person...Ian Cutress - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I know I keep saying the same thing each time this comes up, but our smartphone team is four different editors in different parts of the world (West coast, Canada, Europe, Central), and have different schedules (only one is full time).Your requests aren't falling on deaf ears, trust me. I'm pushing internally on this stuff too, as well as trying to catch up on my own promised articles on the CPU/motherboard side.
TheinsanegamerN - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
The s7 review is 3 MONTHS late. Tons of other sites have found time to finish reviews, yet anandtech cant? The late GPU reviews as well, are painting a very poor picture. Where are the 1080 and 1070 reviews? Or heck, what about that 960 review that never came out? Or that macbook pro 13 review that was promised and never came out?If you dont have enough people to fix this issue, hire more writers. Or hire full time writers and not part time ones. Or have the other sites assist with the reviews. This lame "oh our writers are part time, nothing we can do" excuse is rapidly wearing out its welcome.
greyhulk - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Bragging that your phone has 6GB of RAM, while knowing that you gimped it so that it doesn't utilized it is pure insanity. The co-founder has gone on record saying this was intentional to save battery (yet the put a smaller battery in). I would have thought that the flack that Samsung received last year over their aggressive RAM management would have given OnePlus pause, but it's almost like they don't even have their finger on the pulse of the mobile industry. Let's face it: Price or not, this is more of an enthusiast device than anything and the enthusiasts were very loudly condemning the aggressive RAM management phones last year. They had to know this was going to blow up in their faces. I'm glad there's an easy fix. Heck, you couldn't even root most models of the GS6 to fix the issue, but it never should have shipped this way.UtilityMax - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
They should have included a brighter screen or an sd card slot instead of wasting resources on more RAM. Another proof that many android smartphone vendors chase superfluous paper specs instead of addressing issues that the users really have.rxzlmn - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
'The OnePlus 2 and the OnePlus 3 both use USB Type-C connectors, but they only implement the USB 2.0 protocol so there's no support for USB Power Delivery either.'The power specifications have nothing to do with the supported USB protocol, this sentence is false. In fact, both the Nexus 5X as well as the Nexus 6P do not support USB 3.
Brandon Chester - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
That's correct, the Nexus 5X and 6P are just USB2 as well. I've amended that sentence, thanks for pointing it out.jjj - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Where are my subpixels! And the microSD and what's with the display's accuracy, that home button and design?That aside, the RAM management is the funniest thing ever. You got 6GB but you are not allowed to use it as only 3-4 apps are allowed to stay open.
Pricing is not great compared to OP1, this one is a lot less value considering.
The devices you guys include in the charts make you seem partial. You include few last gen devices and that has to be on purpose as you don't usually do that.
Fast charging related ,Mediatek just did a demo in China for their Pump Express 3.0, they had a 5.8V/6A charger (so 34.8W) and got to 83% in 27 mins- the marketing claims 70% in 20mins.
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
What's the charge cycle rating on a battery that charges to 83% in 27 minutes?jospoortvliet - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Depends on how you manage heat and how far you push it. Take a 3500mah battery, never charge above 90% and even if you charge it to 75% in 15 min and trickle from there to the 90% you will be fine from a life expectancy perspective I bet.Dr. Swag - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I think you've made a mistake... On the first page you stated multiple times that the oneplus 2 has a microsd card slot but it doesn't... It only has dual sim.osxandwindows - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
So, no gs7 review?ok
dishayu - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Any chance of doing some audio benchmarking as well when reviewing smartphones? I'm specifically referring to audio-quality for headphones/earphones, since many (most) people use their phones as media player these days. Phones vary in capabilities vastly, from Vivo X-play5 with a DAC that costs 40$ on its own to many other flagships using a basic Qualcomm codec.Ian Cutress - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
We did some in the past, when Audio Precision let us borrow the $50k+ kit needed to do some proper testing. However, AP wanted the hardware back and Chris is no longer at AnandTech. If someone can convince AP to long-term loan us the hardware, I'm sure one of our smartphone team would pick up the mantle for the devices they test (and because the team is four people, it would only be tested on 1/4 of devices unless we get duplicates or can hand some off when people travel internationally for events. It also means you'd be lucky to see release day data, and we might have to do audio focused testing. But that all depends if we can get the hardware.)http://www.anandtech.com/show/8078/smartphone-audi...
dishayu - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Thanks for the response. Yeah, sounds like a challenge and a half. I am aware of the past audio testing, which is why I was hoping for more. Maybe a more practical approach would be to send one person to a partnered lab and run a gauntlet test on all phones released in that year... like a shootout, maybe.cheinonen - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Yeah, I'm no longer here but the equipment made to do that level of audio testing is incredibly expensive. I live down the street from Audio Precision so I could borrow it, but most people testing audio quality are using gear with noise levels that are high enough that you can't trust the testing unfortunately.Spectrophobic - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
That... is one disgusting screen.Google please refresh the 5X with an 820 and UFS 2.0.
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
So provide 6GB RAM, then make the software aggressively cull its use to save energy?Apart from future proofing (and to be real, it'll probably run out of Android updates well before 3/4GB would be a limit), that seems rather pointless.
I'd hope like the author hopes that an over the air update would address that, but if the founder said it was to save energy, maybe it's just an intentional choice they'll keep around until 6GB makes any sort of sense in a phone (which again, is probably outside of the usable life of this one).
That said, I think they're generally back on track which is nice. The Oneplus One was a hit, the Two was a miss, this seems closer to the One competitively.
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
So 10 months after launch, much closer to the launch of the 7 now than the 6S, the NVMe storage solution is still pooping all over everyone elses, huh? The OP3 is the closest to bridging the gap on reads, but still a whole 128MB/s behind, and much further in writes (which are cool particularly for app installs - I barely see the install icon anymore after the download).I'm curious, is it *because* of NVMe? It doesn't seem like it should be, I mean NVMe is awesome but mainly reduces the AHCI latencies and gives a stupid amount of in flight queues that consumers probably don't approach often. Is it just how many channels Apple gives their NAND? Is there a limit to how much UFS 2.0 can scale up?
All this said, on the flip side, NVMe seems to take a hit in 4KB random reads/writes, with Samsungs controller overtaking the 6S there, among some others.
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Hm, I see the author also suggests it's because the 6S was the 128GB model. I guess I had assumed they'd all perform the same, despite always knowing larger SSDs usually do better due to more channels.Now I want to test a 16GB 6S to see how the storage fares. What test is used?
Pissedoffyouth - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Random read and write matters much more than sequential, expect for heavy burst photography which the 6GB RAM should help withtipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I recall some of the early generations of SSDs had 4K random read/write performance as a culprit for why they would freeze up for a second in worst case situations on a PC, and increasing the random performance was found to be an important metric back then as much as if not more than sequential transfers.However I do wonder at what point of 4K random read/write performance increases is where it will no longer provide any extra kick to most consumer workloads, while hopefully the OS is writing app binaries in nice sequential rows for app launch reads. Going down to 4KB reads would still very much be a very worst case scenario.
thek - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I feel like the reviewer reviewed this device as on-par with other premium/flagship devices that literally cost twice as much and not take into account the device's cost. And I'm not talking about just mentioning the cost itself here.The question should be if devices that cost less(and we're really talking about 1/2 the price of any flagship, with literally the same hardware) should be reviewed differently. Now, by differently I don't mean with different or lower standards ,but maybe with the knowledge that this device is clearly cheaper than other flagships devices for a reason. Something had to be cut back.
If the display was premium as well, that device wouldn't been able to get to a 399$ price mark and make a profit (only makes sense). So if it's not reaaally crucial I'd say it's a slight issue but not one to make you not purchase the phone.
Basically I'm just saying all of this because the last 3 paragraphs really dished the device into making it seem like a no-buy right now to anyone that doesn't want to suffer from a really bad display (again, this is how it sounds to a non-technical guy that just wants a smartphone). Furthermore, as you mentioned, you are a pro reviewer and have different standards, that maybe do not imply to regular users? Yes, you've mentioned it(very slightly), but saying something like you won't replace your old low end phone for this one just because of the display makes it sound probably worse than it is(or actually, the worse it can be: ''but for anyone who cares even the slightest bit the issues with the OnePlus 3’s display will be too severe to live with.''). I'd recommend providing the device for some day to day users/family members and asking if they enjoy the display.
With all of that said, I think that companies that are trying to do things differently for the better or to be cheap on the consumers expense (like Samsung, Apple, and basically any other that charges double the amount for the same hardware or charges premium prices every year for the same old battery's and storage- which Xiaomi showed us with the Redmi note 3 pro that a 4000 battery is possible with a 200$ or less phone) should be praised.
Only god knows why reviewers provide each year an A grade score for the Galaxy's and Iphone's when they don't even provide bigger batteries which is clearly out of making us buy their next phones again next year.
I'd bash them, and not OP or Xiaomi for trying to provide more for less. just my 2 cents
thek - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Regarding the last line - what I mean is that even if those companies flagships have slight bumps they should still be highly recommended for the sake of maybe making other big companies charge less for their phones (which they obv can do if this one costs 400$), or provide more for that same amount of money. They don't innovate because we just don't give them enough hard time for providing the same phone every year but with just more gimmicks, and not practical things like battery sizes and storage10basetom - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
If they really want to help consumers save money, they should've gone with 3GB of RAM and keep the same $349 price tag. That extra 3GB is mostly for show at the moment (except maybe when you're playing 3D games).thek - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
again, going for the one that tried to do something good.why not take the argument to apple for having only 2GB (or 1!!!!!) up until a year ago or to Samsung (and of course, Apple again) for keeping the batteries at a pathetic 2000-3000~ mark when they can provide much more if they wanted?
''why 6'' is a worse argument than ''why only 2''.
LukaP - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
(speaking about ram now)Because, in case you havent noticed, the iPhones up until last year, didnt need more than a gig of ram, and still perform great with 2gigs, so why increase BOM and power usage for silly specs?
As for the batteries, these are very much parts that are dependent on the design of a phone. Sure they could slap in a 6000mAh battery into the next Galaxy, but then people like you, if not you, would be complaining here taht the phone is heavy and feels like a brick.
I personally dont have a problem with smaller batteries/ram amounts/resolutions if it doesnt compromise the user experience. and speaking from a perspective of an iPhone SE owner, the lower resolution screen is not noticable, the low battery capacity provides me more usable time than any Galaxy S device ive had before, and multitasking is faster and much less disruptive than it has ever been, despite "only" 2 gigs of RAM.
So why bash them for stupid "features"? Because either they could not include them, and save money, or not include them, adn spend that money on something that really matters, like a better screen, or atleast in factory calibration of what they have now.
UtilityMax - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
The claim that iPhones like the 6, didn't need more than 1GB, even last year, is just BS. I had iphones with 1GB of RAM, and the apps and the tabs inside the web browsers kept reloading without any warning, sometimes losing data all the time. Yes, Apple did clever things to make sure the phone doesn't literally run out of memory, but multitasking was horrible. Moreover, It's truly ridiculous that a former flagship phone like iPhone 6 is no longer future proof, even though it's only two years old.Buk Lau - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
there's a difference between "having 6GB of RAM" and "having 6GB but only limiting usage to something lower." what oneplus is doing is simply limiting RAM usage on the kernel level to something lower than 6; if that's the case, why have 6GB of RAM at all? what's the point if I pay for 6GB but can't use all of it at my will? oneplus said they are doing to save battery, but if that's the case why not just take off 2GB and use that money for a bigger battery? "why 6" isn't the argument here, it's "why 6 when only use 4?"melgross - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Because iOS functions differently. Android keeps apps open, and running, when you aren't using them, when they don't need to, absorbing RAM, processor cycles and battery power. Except for apps that need to do work in the background, iOS doesn't keep them open. Sometimes I have 50 apps in the que, but they're not actually open. The state of the apps are kept, and when we go to them again, it seems as though they were open.This is why iOS needs less RAM than Android.
UtilityMax - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
But iOS keeps killing the apps and reloading the web browser tabs so aggressively that it really affects the usability. The 1GB iPhones are getting pretty much useless to me right now, because all they spend most of their time on, seemingly, is to reload the web browser tabs, silently, sometimes losing my data. I never run into such issues with the Android phones with 2GB of memory. What iOS did was simply a hack to hide the facts that iPhone 6 shipped with an inadequate amount of RAM.UtilityMax - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
2-3GB of RAM is more than adequate. But 6GB is pretty much ridiculous. Ask any power-user or any price conscious user, and they would probably tell you that they would gladly trade the 3GB of Oneplus 3's RAM for better screen or an sd card slot or more battery life. 6GB is pretty much superflous at this point.LiverpoolFC5903 - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
RAM is cheap though, as you can see by the glut of sub 300 USD phones from China with 3/4 GB RAM and weak processors. Even phones with a processor as weak as the Mt 6753 have 3GB at least these days. That extra 3 gb should no have added all that much to the bom, especially compared to the SOC and Display.Companies who gimp on RAM do it because they want to create sub segments and not because it adds a lot to the bom.
In any case, 2GB is more than sufficient for anything in Android, anything above is a waste. I dont need 100 apps in memory, no thanks. 6 GB is ridiculous overkill imho.
UtilityMax - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
Sadly, in the world of Android the competition has forced the companies to start hyping the features nobody asked for, such as QHD screens, octa-core processors, and now I guess RAM (6GB of it, no less). At the same time, the Android vendors often fail to deliver features people really wanted, such as better battery life, quality screens (as in good brightness and black levels, at least), sd card slots, unlocked wireless bands, and single-core performance that could match at least the three year old Snapdragon 800/801 at an affordable price.fanofanand - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I seem to recall them highly lauding the Moto-G, and even the Moto-E. Your complaints are largely invalid, as they do take price into account. They are technical reviewers, if they started every sentence with a caveat about price it would be unbearable reading. "Xiaomi showed us with the Redmi note 3 pro that a 4000 battery is possible with a $200 or less phone".Then go buy the Xiaomi. If you think that phone is the bee's knees then vote with your wallet. If a massive battery is the sole important factor in your phone purchasing then your search is over! For the rest of us, it's nice to see the technical analysis and decide for ourselves what amount of compromise is worth the cost savings.
FWIW I am on my 2nd Nexus 5 because no company has made anything since that is a better value. I get the value proposition, I do.
thek - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
You obviously didn't understand the argument, sir.The point was that if even a low end cheap Chinese phone can have better batteries, than huge companies can include them too. But they don't. So why is that?
fanofanand - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Maybe because there are no employee protections in China? Maybe because there are no real consumer protections in China? The cost of doing business as a Chinese company is a fraction of the cost of doing business in the EU or the US. There is a reason most Chinese products don't get sold in either of those two markets, and it isn't just patent/copyright laws. You might as well ask yourself why you can buy 10 Chinese t-shirts for the same price of one US made t-shirt. BOM is not static between nations.thek - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
You do realize that the IPhone is made in China right?..You missed it again: the correct answer was that those companies are being cheap on us consumers, even on their premium priced flagships because they want to keep making billions of dollars of revenue per quarter (not even talking yearly!!).
they can provide 64GB as base storage and 4000+ batteries as minimum. They just don't want to.
melgross - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Ah, you're missing the point. Quality manufacturers all pay about the same thing for the same things. A screen may be made by one manufacturer, but their customers may spec a lower, or higher quality for brightness, speed, color quality, contrast, power draw, and other matters.The same thing is true for everything else. There are higher quality batteries, and lower quality batteries. The better ones may last for 1,000 recharges, and the cheaper ones may just last 500. Storage is, again, the same. Apple obviously uses higher quality NAND, hence the much higher speeds. It's been said elsewhere too. When making cheaper phones, compromises must be made. Not spending the money to calibrate a screen is a factor that we see here. Even if they come out with an sRGB update, without calibrating each screen, it will still look pretty bad. Cheaper components and fewer features are the way to go. How a manufacturer balances that all out is the differentiating factor.
kurahk7 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Here are a few reasons why the display is the single most important part of a smartphone-1. You stare at it all day long.
2. The image that you see while taking a photo is expected to be the same as when you print it out or share to a friend.
3. You will be able to enjoy content the original creator intended.
echoe - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I mean, if a phone didn't have a working display it would not be usable. The screen needs to be good. They mention the caveats to this judgment in the review, but obviously it's pretty bad ...UtilityMax - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
Why do you think that 400USD is not enough money for the vendor to deliver a quality screen? In fact, the vendors have gotten quite lazy recently. The 600+ USD prices were artificially inflated to herd the consumers into signing the multi-year cellular plans so they got big discounts on hardware. Now that the heavy discounting of the locked carrier-branded smartphones by the carriers is nearly gone, I don't know what's going to keep justifying the 500-600USD prices on the flagship phones when a phone like Nexus 5X offers 90% of functionality, at 40 percent discount. The Nexus 5X normally sold for well under 400USD. It had a great display and great camera, and was basically a good all-around phone. Yes, the SoC was slower than that in OP3, but that issue affected most phones of the 5X generation.The_Assimilator - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Hey look it's... not a GTX 1080 review.knpk13 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Cyanogenmod is already available for the OP3. Im using it on the OP2 and with a custom kernel which mitigates a lot of issues with the OP2. You guys didn't talk much about development support. OP3 kernel sources and device trees (very rare) were released on day one. I can tune color profiles using kcal by savoca, but I'm not sure how to do that without a colorimeter. So what I'm asking is, can custom Roms and kernel fix the display accuracy?Brandon Chester - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
No, because the gamut target is incorrect.Buk Lau - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Talking about dev support in a review is simply ridiculous. A good product should be good as it is out of the box, dev support is an additional plus, not a solution to its faultsmelgross - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
You can't personally calibrate these displays because Android has no color management. There is no place for software to put, and use, a color profile for the display. The manufacturer does it, and adds it to the OS with custom code. If a calibrator manufacturer were to offer calibration with their equipment, it would require a special app to be used, only within that app would the profile work. Everything else would remain the same.But, it's worse. Since there is no color management, you need the device to be connected to a computer that does have color management. Then you download an app for your phone, and turn it on. Tou connect your phone to the computer. The app in your computer detects that that app is working when you tell it its on. It then reads from what the app in the phone is doing, and stores that info on your computer. Afterwards, it transfers that info to the special app in your phone. When you open that app in the phone, you can direct it to your picture storage, and view the pictures from within the app. That's about it.
Not very satisfactory? Yup! To fix all of this, Alphabet needs to add color management to Android. But there doesn't seem to be any interest to do this from them, and it does need to be an integrated OS level call.
Lolimaster - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
Thats why for now the only choice for actual display accuracy are:Get Apple products
Samsung Galaxy AMOLED with basic profile
WoodyPWX - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
My colleague just received the One Plus 3 and I can compare it to my iP6s+ and another colleagues Nexus 5x. OP3 is amazing piece of HW, more beautiful than my iPhone (N5X looks like a toy!) and although it has the same size of the display, it is slimmer, smaller and lighter in total. The touch sensor is blazing fast, just as the charging. UI looks stock (read "fine, I like it"). 64GB and 6GB RAM are enough for everything. I was very surprised by that phone even before I knew how cheap it is! I'm really curious what will be the reaction of other Android manufacturers.polygon_21 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
one plus x2 with 5'' screen please.. small handshahmed330 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Where is the GTX1080 review!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!shktr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
How can one exaggerate that much about the phone display? Its not even true that its supposedly one of the worst displays around. Been using the phone for about one week now. The screen is fine, ofcourse it can't compete with a galaxy s7 or iphone 6s. Hence, those devices cost double the price. My colleagues also think the screen is fine, great colors and for sure better than the OP1/2.And how come other reviews don't mention how 'bad' the display is? This is the first review which has such complaints about the display.
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
It's not an exaggeration when you have objective measurements to back up your claim.fanofanand - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Not to mention I call BS on his entire statement. You really sit around the water cooler with your colleagues discussing the screen quality of your phone? You discuss how great the colors are? Unless you work for a mobile phone manufacturer, you are either lying or the most boring guy in the office.shktr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I work at an IT company. Talking about new tech on a daily basis. So why would it be BS? Who wouldn't discuss their brand new phone and its performance? That aside, I'm curious why most of the people that review the phone are positive about the display? They are all lying? I agree its not the best out there. Yet saying its a poor display is just wrong.UtilityMax - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
I am not a big display quality nut, but the two things I really care about is max brightness and black levels, which basically means that I expect the screen to look good to an untrained eye, either outdoors or in the dark. So it is disappointing to see that Oneplus 3 has max brightness about on the level of Asus Zenfone 2. A lot of people thought this was not even acceptable on a 200-300 dollar device which Zenfone 2 was, but for a 400USD 2016 "flagship killer" it's ridiculous.Eden-K121D - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Yep.People should stop whining and accept the fact that oneplus 3 has a POOR displaygrayson_carr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
If you call the OnePlus 3 display poor, then I think you have to call the Galaxy S7 display poor as well because by default its display is no more accurate than the OnePlus 3 display. You have to change the display mode from adaptive to basic to make the S7 display accurate, which let's be honest, only about 0.1% of people who buy the S7 do that. I think Anandtech needs to start publishing display measurements using the default display settings as they come out of the box, because that's what 99.9% of people will use and see when they buy the phone. I'm fine with including measurements of the basic mode as well, but I don't think it should be the only measurements shown. The default settings should be measured and discussed considering that's how most people, even enthusiasts who read this site, will use it.Eden-K121D - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
At Least they give an option to change the mode. Oneplus doesn't even do thatLolimaster - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
You have the option and if you care about accuracy you will use it.Avrg people like colors to poop but once you show them how the colors should look (specially when white/black/greyscale are involved) they dont look back after switching to "basic".
Brandon Chester - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
The screen is not better than the OnePlus One at all. There's no subjectivity here, these are purely objective measurements. If someone enjoys that a display shows completely inaccurate gaudy colors and has a severely blue-shifted white point, there's nobody trying to stop them from enjoying it.An analogy: I enjoy The Room, but I would never try to argue that it's an objectively high quality film on the basis that I enjoy it. You can enjoy a display with poor image rendition, but that doesn't make it good.
grayson_carr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
While we're complaining about gaudy colors and shifted white points, I would like to request that Anandtech start publishing display measurements for the default display modes of phones. For example, the Galaxy S and Note lines and the Nexus 6P both ship with displays with gaudy colors and shift white points but default, but we never see those measurements, but just the measurements after you have set them to sRGB mode. The problem with that is that 99.9% of people who buy those phones leave the display settings at the default. I would bet you cold hard cash that even the majority of Anandtech readers leave the display settings at default. And so now we have a bunch of people running around claiming "Anandtech said my phone has like the most accurate display, dude", but then I look at their phone, and uhhh, no. They are using the default display mode and have been mislead into thinking those colors are accurate. I realize that most Anandtech readers aren't dumb enough to pull that, but the problem is, when Anandtech publishes its findings, a bunch of other news outlets come along and say "Anandtech and DisplayMate say this phone displays the most accurate colors ever", but conveniently leave off the part about have to change settings for that to be true. I'm not saying you should test and publish the results in the sRGB modes. You should. I'm just saying you should ALSO publish the results for the default display settings for a device. And if the accuracy sucks at the default settings, you should call it out and complain about it a bit, even if there is an sRGB setting buried in developer options somewhere. You can tell me the Galaxy S7 has a more accurate display than the iPhone 6S all you want, but if I run meet two people when I'm out and one has an S7 and one has a 6S, guess which one is going to be more accurate 99.9% of the time?/rant
grayson_carr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Err, should have proofread before posting. Autocorrect killed me and there's no edit button."I'm not saying you *shouldn't test and publish the results in the sRGB modes."
pcpoweruser - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
You are simply not getting something - display accuracy has very little to do with sRGB color space itself. sRGB is a relatively dull, limited colorspace that defines collors far bellow what human eyes can see and it only exists because wider gamut was problematic to achieve on pre-OLED displays. AdobeRGB (that OLEDs can reach) is far richer, vibrant closer to life color space.Personally, I would never use modern, wide-gamut OLED display in crippled sRGB mode that essentially limit panel ability do render deep, saturated colours, it is just not 'fun'. Many of these colors are just UI elements, icons, etc - they look much nicer with wide gamut. Yes, I cannot believe that Android still does not have any form of color management built in and think it is a total disgrace. As a result, the cost of using full abilities of wide gamut displays is that photos (typically designed to be shown on sRGB display) will look oversaturated, even if they are embedded with proper sRGB/AdobeRGB profile, as Android simply have no way to process it. However, to be fair, I a can live with this - I am not a photographer and do not need accurate saturation in photos on my mobile.
But to the point: AdobeRGB (that many OLEDs target) is essentially extension of sRGB, so on OS that does not understand color management, photos with sRGB profile would simply look more saturated - but the colors would be still accurate (i.e certain share of red would be still the same shade, just more intense). NTSC that Oneplus 3 panel seems to target is a different gamut, that is 'shifted' in space (look at CIE graphs), so for instance orange might become red - and this is a problem.
Additionally, there is another aspect of accuracy: balance of individual primary colours at various intensity steps (so called 'greyscale') - and this is quite broken in Oneplus 3 too (yes, I have got one) - blue is dominating heavily pretty much all the intensity steps.
Combined with a very high color temperature ('balance' option in the UI does not help much, it just adds hideous pink hue) and low ~800p real resolution thanks to pentile pattern (with all the artifacts like diamond-shaped fill and color fringing at hight contrast edged) the result is simple - the display is objectively very bad.
My point of reference is to N6P panel, which is absolutely gorgeous, accurate and ultra sharp in comparison.
It is a shame, as otherwise phone is great (build quality, SoC, fast storage), but looking at the screen is just too painful for me - so I am sending it back.
I understand that possibly less than 1% really care about quality of the display, but I am one of those people and totally agree with the reviewer here.
grayson_carr - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
You've missed my point entirely, which was to request that Anandtech provide measurements for displays as they are calibrated out of the box. By default, the Galaxy S7 and Nexus 6P are just as bad, calibration wise, as the OnePlus 3. They are not calibrated to any standard. Not sRGB, not Adobe RGB. Yes there are sRGB modes on both the S7 and 6P, which are what Anandtech tests and publishes results for, and there is also an Adobe RGB mode for the S7, but when you take those phones out of the box, the calibration of each is truly awful, just like the OnePlus 3. Uhg, and you're acting like the 6P has some great panel. God, the 6P screen is sharp and accurately calibrated (in sRGB mode), sure, but it has a horrible grainy look to it and has awful sunlight visibility in sRGB mode (sunlight visibility in the default inaccurate mode is fine, but it's truly terrible in sRGB mode). I own an S7 Edge, OnePlus 3, and Nexus 6P because I'm an Android app developer, so I can compare them all side by side here.pcpoweruser - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
You are missing my point too: 6P in default mode is fine - it targets colour space similar to AdobeRGB, so colors are just more saturated, but they are still the same colors. There is no reason to use sRGB mode on 6P (as you mentioned it impacts maximum brightness badly - like any color curve adjustment) unless you are a photographer and work with sRGB photos on your workstation - by using sRGB mode you are simply crippling display capability to show wide gamut.Oneplus 3 is different, by default it targets odd gamut that actually shitfs colors and make them very different colors - this does not happen 6P. Not to mention terrible white balance and greyscale, which is just fine on 6P in non-sRGB mode. Grainy look on 6P display: is this a joke? Maybe with some dodgy screen protector. It is one of the sharpest, cleanest displays and makes Oneplus 3 look absolutely terrible in comparison.
grayson_carr - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
"colors are just more saturated, but they are still the same colors"What? Not to me. If you take a color and make it way more saturated, it is not the same color. I guess you're saying green will still be green, etc, but just more saturated. I get that. But it still makes photos look untrue to life if the colors are all oversaturated. And even if I accept your explanation for the 6P, what about the S7 and Note 5? The default adaptive mode on those phones is NOT sRGB nor Adobe RGB. It's Samsung's made up colors that they think look good and it's no better than what we see on the OnePlus 3. If Anandtech would test these modes we would see that, which is why I want Anandtech to start testing and discussing them.
Buk Lau - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
maybe because other so called "reviews" don't even have a colorimeter to properly test displays? subjectively saying "oh it looks good to me" doesn't mean much to everyonegrayson_carr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
The display is only 'bad' from a color accuracy standpoint. I actually have the phone, and also own a Galaxy S7 Edge and Nexus 5X. Subjectively, if you hand a random person on the street all three of these phones, they would probably say the OnePlus 3 display looks the best. The Nexus 5X is technically the most accurate, but looks washed out next to the other two to your average person who doesn't deal with color accurate displays for a living. The S7 Edge (mine anyways) has whites that lean too much towards green, so it looks kind of unnatural. I thought the lower resolution of OnePlus 3 would bother me because the display is pentile, but honestly, the screen density it set such that I never bring the phone close enough to my face to notice. Also, while I don't have a measurement device, I think the white balance of my OnePlus 3 is not as cool as the one Anandtech received. Comparing it to other phones, I would guess my sample is more in the 7500K range. Brandon also seems to have missed the color temperature slider in the display settings. I wonder if he had adjust the color temperature a bit warmer if the color measurements would have been a little better.grayson_carr - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Oh, I forgot to mention, if you like how the Galaxy S6, S7 and Note 5 displays look in their default adaptive display mode, you will probably like how the OnePlus 3 display looks because it looks very similar to that. Unfortunately, Anandtech and everyone else only test the color accuracy of Samsung displays after changing the display mode to basic / sRGB, which almost no one uses in reality. So you will hear the Galaxy S7 display is suuuupppppeeeerrrr accurate, blah, blah, blah!!! But if you go out and survey actual Galaxy S7 owners on the street, 99.9% of them will be using the default display setting that is not accurate at all and probably no more accurate than the OnePlus 3 display, yet people still say it looks great. So bottom line, don't write of the OnePlus 3 because Anandtech hates the display.Buk Lau - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
it's ok, we get it, you are trying to defend your purchase. Idk if you have read any of those reviews you mentioned so far (probably not as you are still saying these), but in N6P review they clearly gave out results for both profiles. also what you are forgetting is that this is not simply a color profile issue, 1+ just straight up didn't calibrate these panels out of the box. what people like is different from what something objectively is. you can like the 1+3 and its poorly calibrated panels, but that doesn't change the fact that the panel is inaccurate. there's a reason why these standards exist, and just because you don't like the standard doesn't mean it's important.grayson_carr - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
Why would I need to defend my purchase? I own a Galaxy S7 edge and will be keeping it as my main phone and returning the OnePlus 3. I only bought a OnePlus 3 because I am an Android app developer and phone enthusiast and just like trying all of the new phones. That's great that they gave out results of both profiles for the 6P, but if I remember correctly, it's only because they tested the default profile before they discovered the sRGB mode. They never test the default profile of Samsung phones. I want them to call Samsung out for shipping phones with displays that are so inaccurate out of the box. Yeah, it's great that Samsung gives you an accurate profile setting, but when you just test that and don't even mention the default profile, it confuses people and makes most people think Samsung displays are accurate right out of the box. Even many reviewers at other popular sites obviously don't know that Samsung displays are onky accurate in basic mode.grayson_carr - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
there's a reason why these standards exist, and just because you don't like the standard doesn't mean it's important.Wtf dude? You've got me all wrong. I'm a proponent of sRGB. I like it and wish all phones were calibrated to that standard out of the box. That said, if you're going to completely trash a phone for not being calibrated to sRGB out of the box, you need to trash every phone that isn't calibrated to that out of the box to some extent, but Samsung just throws in an sRGB profile that no real world users even know about and gets away with shipping displays that aren't calibrated to any standard at all by default (cough... adaptive mode)???
Buk Lau - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
You are missing one important factor, Samsung gave out an sRGB option out of the box in their settings. They didn't tell you, and they don't necessarily have to tell you just like how they don't have to tell you that you can uninstall/disable 80% of the junk that came with TouchWiz. However, it is an option that came by default, while I agree it is bs for not actively notifying the user of it, you can still turn it on. More importantly, if you are reading AT's review, then you know what they are using right? So if you read their review and learned that they claim the display is good, you should have already known what settings they are using to get those metrics. So no, AT doesn't have to test the default option if AT tells you that they are using sRGB mode. You as the reader should have known after reading the review, just like when you look at any data you have to first understand how the test is setup. If they don't tell you that, then that's their problem. 1+ straight up had no other options, and the problem itself may not be even fixable with a software update, that's the differenceKepe - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
The difference between other reviews and this one is that the others just look at some pictures on the screen and then write that the colors are very vivid and bright and they "pop". Anandtech measures the picture quality using proper tools instead of just looking at the screen with the naked eye and then saying something vague and subjective. And I'm glad they do, because I don't want a phone that skews colors on the screen. I do more image editing on my phone than on my computer. If the screen is inaccurate, the pictures will look very wrong to others when they look at them on their phones.zodiacfml - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Right. I have a Nexus 5 and the grays just pop out because of quality.Now though, I'm itching for Samsung's displays as it will give the best contrast and best late night viewing.
ssiu - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Nobody here interested in Daydream VR? I may not want to shell out hundreds for "is it just a gimmick" VR but I want my next phone upgrade to be Daydream VR compatible, I'll pay ~$100 incremental cost for a VR headset.I believe ZTE Axon 7 is a "flagship spec at midrange price" phone that is Daydream compatible and "coming soon".
tipoo - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I wonder if Daydream solves positional drift though. Since smartphones have no fixed reference points for VR, they were just approximating movement with the accelerometer and gyro, leading it to "drift" from your heads actual position. I hoped Daydream would solve that, but it seems the headset adds no extra sensors and is still a fancier "dumb" headset like Cardboard.dezonio2 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
I don't really care about Daydream, but ZTE Axon 7 seems to address all the shortcomings of the One+ 3.5.5" 1440p AMOLED (hopefully more accurate) and SD card slot seem like benefits worth paying the extra $50 for. And personally I'd rather see the review for the Axon 7 than the HTC 10 or the part 2 for the S7. Or even the GTX 1080. (runs away from the angry mob)
Eden-K121D - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Galaxy S7 review not out yet sometimes Anandtech is too lethargiccoder111 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Just for a record- OnePlus has TERRIBLE CUSTOMER SUPPORT.DO NOT BUY if you want to receive decent warranty service.
I have a broken OnePlus2 which I have sent to service center twice. First time they sent it back without any repairs. Second time it took 10 days just to get the shipping label to send it to a different repair center. It has been there for 2 weeks now without any notice of what's going on or if I'll get my phone back in working order or when.
In between all this it takes a long time to get response from the customer support team. They often copy-paste canned responses without even reading what I have said in my ticket. There is now way to call someone and talk in person or at least have an on-line chat- everything is a ticket system where getting a response takes a day or several.
In short, my phone has been broken for 2 months, OnePlus is still to repair it or to send a replacement. I want my money back for experience like this.
fanofanand - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
This post reflects reasons #1, 2 and 3 why I will not consider a OnePlus device. The cost savings aren't worth it when the customer service is similar to what you would experience with an eBay purchase. This isn't an isolated experience, forums are filled with angry customers who have non-functioning phones and OnePlus ignores the situation.zodiacfml - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Not interested. Waste of $400. I Can't wait for the Nexus.nfriedly - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
> There’s basically no use case where you use a phone without looking at the screen, and right from the very first moment I turned on the OnePlus 3 I could tell that the colors are completely wrong.Except for, you know, talking. :P
That said, I agree with your point - I use my phone more for texting and web browsing than calls, and the awful screen means there's no chance I'll ever buy or recommend it.
fanofanand - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
zing!barn25 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
You know ever since anand left this site has pretty much gone to shit, no reviews, late reviews as well as shilling for intel. this is why this site has dropped 2000 points ranking -wise in the past year. Keep up the good work @ killing yourselves.vision33r - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
One thing to consider is that OnePlus devices are a breeze to root since the Bootloader can be unlocked simply with a setting. You can't do that with any Samsung these days. Oxygen OS has recently opened up to developers so expect custom roms to be easy as an unofficial CyanogenMod Rom for the OnePlus Two was available easily. While the display has issues, I think it will be an improvement over OnePlus Two. I have trouble reading it in the sun light compared to the Nexus 6P. So, here's hoping that the sRGB setting will be out soon and make the user experience more acceptable. I do like some of the custom touches on the OxygenOS which gives it a custom rom feel in a stock rom.airro - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Amazing review, I never payed much attention to different tech review sites when I googled smart phones and read reviews. But after reading this one, I am wowed. The author so damn knowledgeable and the article so well written, so technical, and well organized, with even a drop down spinner to select the sections. (Unlike other review sites that have pages that you don't know leads to what.). I created an anandtech account just so I could post this comment.UtilityMax - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
So, is the Nexus 5X still the best "budget" smartphone in the 300-400USD range?peterfares - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
This review just shows how terrible of an SoC the Snapdragon 810 was. Snapdragon 808 is also just as bad, I hate it in my BB PRIV. The 805 would have been a better choice.syxbit - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Exactly. I'm not sure why, but last year AnandTech spent so much time defending Qualcomm with the SD810/808. And now than Qualcomm has something better in 2016, they go back to criticizing it the 2015 line.joehtoo2 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Great review! Can't find anything else like these on the internet, love the deep divesFidelator - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Top tier still camera, better than the ones on iPhones, performance, build quality, battery and battery charge speed, I most certainly will not be using my phone as a reference display nor will I edit sensitive content on it, the saturated look doesn't bother me o most people for that matter, though I get where you are coming from, this is a no brainier for my use case and I'm sure most people fall there.Now. The real problem, I can only buy through Amazon, yet, the price listed there is $600, what the hell Oneplus. The price difference is absolutely ridiculous, list it at the proper price.
Fidelator - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Worth saying, finally a review comes in time, this is appreciated, flagship reviews have been VERY late and untimely to say the least.Sadly, no other site does comparable smartphone reviews.
anony1 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
anatech review getting shittier day by day. last time Brian Klug review was detail in antenna reception and other sort of technical thing. by this type of common review, it is nothing more than gsma.Gorgenapper - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Any idea when the HTC 10 review is coming? I mean, it did come out before the OP3...rgao007 - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Any chance you guys left the preinstalled screen protector on while conducting the display testing?thebarca - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
UofT represent! Love the camera pictures of UofTrajesh.k - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
How does it fair against Nexus 6's display in color production?I already have a Nexus 6, it will help me in my decision on whether to or not to buy this phone.
The review is excellent.
AbRASiON - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
Once you've used wireless charging, sadly you can't go backzeeBomb - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
That Dash charge is something special. Hope more OEMs other than oppo's vooc uses it!rajesh.k - Monday, June 20, 2016 - link
And also, should I rely on this phone for photo editing purposes?I just edit RGB values, trying to make out come true to life, but if the colors are wrong, I might be messing up my photo, right?
Badelhas - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Brandon, when will the HTC 10 full review be released?Cheers
JimmiG - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Still got my OnePlus One and it's working great. I felt the OP2 was completely uninteresting because it was a regression from the OPO in so many ways. The OP3 at least looks like a proper upgrade of everything except the display. If they aren't going to increase the resolution, why not stick with the same proven IPS panel from the OPO, which they know looks good?Anyway no need to upgrade from my OPO. With Android 5.x, battery life and performance were horrible compared to KitKat, but now that it has got Android 6.x finally, performance and battery life are back to normal levels.
caplus12000 - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Can the display be calibrated to RGB?freaky.tech - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
so can this display issue be resolved just by software updates ? and u mean to say its just a software issue not hardware issue ?victorson - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Great review, but I find it funny when you guys say absurd things like 'The phone charges in 1.44 hours.' Um okay, what the fuck is that supposed to mean? Can you just write it in a human-readable way?freaky.tech - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
that means a lil less than one and a half hour... any human who ever went to school would understand this...victorson - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
No kidding? We, humans, however, tend to speak in hours and minutes. Or maybe you go on about your life and tell your friends to meet at 7.89pm? Have some common sense.BenSkywalker - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Why do you use the incredibly narrow sRGB standard versus AdobeRGB(or NTSC for that matter)?sRGB is inferior- this is not questionable- it is a point of fact. Anyone who works with real video or photo editing knows this is a garbage standard created for low end devices that couldn't handle the wider color gamuts. You can make the argument on which you should be aiming for, ARGB or NTSC- but championing the- in every single way- inferior sRGB borders on insanity.
When Rec 2020 is the target for new phones are you going to test it using black and white calibration?
Something matching sRGB simply means it is a device aimed at the low end. It is not a good thing. Now if you tested it versus what it claims to be shooting for- NTSC- and it failed to match the standards you would have a compelling argument- as it is you come of as someone who is either utterly clueless, or simply trying to spread misinformation and your preference for low accuracy, low color, low contrast displays.
JoshHo - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
If you can control the colorspace target from capture to the end device then wider gamuts are better and possible. However the nature of the web is such that you cannot assume that your target device will have the gamut you intend or have proper color management at all. Windows and Android don't support proper color management as an ecosystem so the default fallback is sRGB.I don't think we claim that sRGB is better, but that it is just what the standard is for most content.
Ryan Smith - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
And just to add to that, for displays that actually get reasonably close to an expanded space, we certainly test for that. See our iPad Pro 9.7" review for an example of that.http://www.anandtech.com/show/10286/the-97-ipad-pr...
Going forward, I'm expecting that more mobile devices will support DCI, in which case they'll get the iPad treatment. Conversely however, it doesn't make a ton of sense to test displays against DCI when they aren't actively trying to support it. Since content is authored for sRGB and needs mapped into DCI, treating a device like it's DCI when it's not would in practice harm sRGB as well.
BenSkywalker - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
So you'll test if it's an Apple product using a standard created for projectors, OK. The Galaxy Tab S was touted as supporting the Adobe RGB standard- you didn't test that(either generation). This phone said it was shooting for NTSC which is also a wider color standard and one used far more commonly than DCI- also not tested.At this point we are discussing all outdated standard regardless- Adobe now has their wide gamut standard because even AdobeRGB isn't wide enough, and we have Rec2020 which is another wider color standard. Out of all of these color standards the one you test for is the one made for projectors.... I'd love to hear the reasoning behind this. If not using projector standards- use the lowest common denominator?
The reality is that everyone else seems to think the display looks pretty good- except you who seem to base your assessment entirely around your very narrow personal preference for sRGB. If that's what you like that is fine- passing off what you like as the only right way to do it(outside of using a projector standard for tablets?) isn't very objective.
Not questioning your summation of the display- pointing out that it couldn't be more self obviously biased based on your very narrow standards for what you want in a display. Nothing is wrong with that, but it is very much subjective.
Andrei Frumusanu - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
>> So you'll test if it's an Apple product using a standard created for projectors, OK. The Galaxy Tab S was touted as supporting the Adobe RGB standard- you didn't test that(either generation).iOS supports colour profiles. Android doesn't. Simple as that.
Matt Humrick - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
sRGB is NOT our personal preference. We would love to see proper wide gamut support, and when a device supports a different gamut, we test it like we did for the iPad Pro 9.7". But until Android supports color management, testing against sRGB is the only thing that makes sense. A few other points:1) Most of the content you're going to view on a mobile device uses the sRGB color space, including web pages, games, and even the pictures and video taken with mobile devices.
2) Viewing a file intended for DCI on an iPad Pro 9.7" results in properly rendered colors, because iOS supports color management. Viewing the same file on an Android device with a wide-gamut panel results in innaccurate, oversaturated colors, because Android does not support color management and assumes everything is sRGB. Color space support requires both hardware and software support. The OP3, like almost every mobile device, lacks the software component.
3) Some people prefer these more vivid colors even if they do not match the content creator's intent. That's fine. We even help quantify how vivid the colors will look with our saturation test (each square represents a 20% increase in saturation up to 100% sRGB target), and a visual example with the color swatch.
zodiacfml - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Thanks to all Anandtech writers. I appreciate your replies in the comments.BenSkywalker - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
I guess you just have a very unique perspective. From a professional perspective this doesn't make sense at all- ICC color profiles are simply one way to handle forced color accuracy, and not a terribly good one at that as GPU overrides of color balance are fairly normal anyway on most devices. From a consumer perspective wanting the least amount of colors possible doesn't make sense in any rational way that I can come up with. Apple's way of handling things gives you two calibration targets- one is the narrowest in use, the other designed for movie projectors. Force decode True Color is a pretty useful option when trying to maximize the range covered.
1)Most content isn't calibrated. Period. Content that has calibration as a very high priority, isn't calibrated using sRGB.
2)When moving from a wider gamut space to a narrower one you deal with truncation, where are you getting that it is going to go through multiple up and down scaled balances? That isn't how it works.
3)You say that's fine, and we see articles spending hundreds of words bashing displays if they don't do it under the most narrowly defined set of parameters imaginable.
BenSkywalker - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Side note- looking at your reported numbers, it appears they were shooting for Japan's NTSC standard as their white point is far closer to that then the US NTSC. I'm not sure where Japan is on your world map, mine obviously looks a little different :)
Oyeve - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Would be nice if you guys actually did a real S7 review so we could see a real comparison against this OP3. But no, we have skewed data that really is not relevant at all. Way to go guys!leopard_jumps - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Good job ! Yet something is missing : photos and videos in incandescent bulb light , are they yellowish .zodiacfml - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
One question with camera testing. How come you still don't have a studio lab for camera testing? It can help uncover some design compromises. It may not have the value for a consumer purchase decision but it has entertainment value, at least for me.ElecDroid - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
Thank you for the unbiased review💯 I was really thinking about buying this phone. The display is of the utmost importance to me. My 3 needs,wants or what have you when I'm shopping for a new smartphone follows. Display,chip performance,OS updates. If the display isn't top notch. I'm already turning the page. Which is why I have a Note 5. Just about all other sites are praising this phone. I can always trust Anandtech to do very thorough reviews! Thank You!aryonoco - Tuesday, June 21, 2016 - link
It would be really, really good if Anandtech could start listing the LTE bands that a device supports.The OnePlus 3 for example, has no SKUs which support all of Australian LTE bands, meaning that if you live in Australia, it will give you a very sub-optimal experience, irrespective of which carrier you use.
This is vital information for a smartphone user. It would be great if AT paid a little attention to this.
vision33r - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
I just got the OnePlus 3, I honest can't say the screen is bad. It's very similar to the Note 3 screen. I compared them side by side and the Note 3 was brighter that's about it. Both uses Pentile which makes them seem similar. I've used it for a whole day and the phone is just blazingly fast and everything I wanted in a Samsung is here except for the QHD display.Lolimaster - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
Put the note3 in the calibrated profile "basic" i guess.When you are using CRT's for 20 years and your current monitor is Trinitron CRT things like the default Galaxy color profile or these one 3 becomes pretty much eye cancer.
vision33r - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
I had the Nexus 6P and sold it, I really don't think the OnePlus 3 screen is as bad as this review makes it seems. Every other review says the display is good but not the best. The viewing angle is actually better than the OnePlus 2 as well as the contrast. The screen doesn't cover as much sRGB gamut but it's good enough for avg user.Lolimaster - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
One Plus going bankrupt soon.And I thought there was no chance in hell some company woul deliver a worse screen than the LG G5. My faith in humanity is lost.
RIP 1+.
Lolimaster - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
You should've ended the review just after the display test and put a big failzodia stamp at the end.luca.costantino - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
My phone arrived a few hours ago. I don't have a colorimeter and my eyes are definitely not expert ones, but the screen seems absolutely amazing. Good resolution, good colors, zero flaws...I understand that the colorimeter says differently, but maybe the our (my...) eyes are not able to see the difference. And maybe it's better like this!
designgears - Wednesday, June 22, 2016 - link
I have to agree, I think the testing done on the screen here is flawed. I have it sitting next to my Nexus 6p in sRGB mode, aside from brightness I'm not seeing much of a difference in color or clarity, certainly not enough to call this the worst screen they have tested.Vulpy - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Unfortunate conclusion, and saying that the screen is the worst out there, really is unfair. The screen is decent, and makes it a very solid option for 99% of potential users.I have it next to my Galaxy Note 4 and the difference is not that massive in comfort and detail. Brightness could have indeed been better (I live in the UK, so... Unfortunately this is not a problem for me.
I have a OP3 and couldn't be happier with the tradeoffs : great performance, sexy as hell, solid shooter, half of the Apple price!
If money is no objection, you go with the Galaxy S7(+), specs and performance benchmark today.
Could have OP made a better phone: sure! It would have been a lost battle to Apple and Samsung marketing machines.
They just nailed it with OP3, this is the Nexus that Google should have done. Not beating every other flagship on all counts, but a fantastic all round package. Peace!
Vulpy - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
BTW, talking about weaknesses, it would have been good to mention the less then perfect palm rejection, the crazy thin bezels (while making the design so appealing) would need some smart touch calibrarion for the edges of the screen.This is for me the first thing OP should tackle in a future update.
sanv - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
I don't understand the rgb and stuff. It's just technical jargons for me.But having used OP3 for few days and having used iPhone 6s for a prolonged time, my conclusion is simple
For a normal guy, the screen is really good. Resolution is good,clarity of images or HD videos are good. And that's what really matters to me.
But yeah max brightness is not upto the mark.
But definitely, display should not be a deal breaker to anyone.
I feel this review is too much biased towards technical superiority on paper and doesn't really show the real world usability
V~M - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
My Oneplus 3 has some issues..the LED customisations doesn't work,My alert slider works but whenever i get a call there is no ringtone no matter whatever settings i select it just vibrates,i think its a bug with Oxygen OS 3.1.2..don't know if any anyone else have the same issue,hope they'll fix it soon!!robert3892 - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
This might be helpful: http://www.androidauthority.com/incoming-oneplus-3...jayendran - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Great review, especially cornering the display issues. However, how could you omit a single mention on sound quality? Or is it just me?vision33r - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
OnePlus will be putting out an update soon that will give it sRGB option and memory fix. So I hope this site change their opinion. There are no other smartphone company out there that addresses complaints or opinions this quickly. I've used the phone for 2 days now and compared it side by side with other phones and I honestly can't tell the different that much. It's not as sharp as newer QHD displays but the color and brightness is not as bad as the review makes it seem. It's better than Nexus 6 and not as accurate as the 6P.vinmoh - Thursday, June 23, 2016 - link
Would be good to get a sense of the call reception and qaulity as well. Often discounted yet a very important functionality of the phone nonetheless :)zodiacfml - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
The OTA should also fix or give an option to adjust the display temp which is too blue.grayson_carr - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
The option to adjust the display temp was already there from the beginning. Anandtech just didn't see it or didn't care to change it.spagnet - Friday, June 24, 2016 - link
Cat 6 LTE? Snapdragon 820 comes with X12 (Cat12/13) LTE Modem, so how was this possible? Your inputs on the LTE performance Brandon?adriangb - Saturday, June 25, 2016 - link
Will this article be updated after the OTA?I think AT should really pay respect to the company for (attempting to) address a review's concerns so quickly. If only all manufacturers listened to reviewers...
UtilityMax - Sunday, June 26, 2016 - link
That's because the kind of people who read anadtech and slashdot are the only ones who tend to buy Oneplus phones. This is a totally "underground" brand for the USA market, with no OnePlus phones sold in any brick and mortar stores, no TV commercials, etc.PaulD87 - Monday, June 27, 2016 - link
It's hard to make an idea about phones by reading reviews on your site.Besides the fact that reading reviews that are 4 days apart you compare the benchmarked phones to totally different phones there are huge differences, for example:
Oneplus 3 review - Samsung galaxy 6 Display - Max Brightness: 335.0
Meizu PRO 5 reviews - Samsung Galaxy 6 Display - Max Brightness: 593.04
That's not a 1-5% let's say difference, that's the difference between a bad and a really good display.
Irishwomble - Thursday, June 30, 2016 - link
Brandon, currently a nexus 5 owner and just cracked the screen so should I get a oneplus 3 or nexus 5x? CheersUtilityMax - Friday, July 1, 2016 - link
Not, Brandon here, but just wanted to mention that a lot of US-based ebay vendors are having a blowout sale on the Nexus 5X phones, which are sold for as little as 225-240 USD for a new phone. It may be a sign that the inventories are cleared for a new 2016 Nexus smartphone. So even if Oneplus 3 is much better, specially if the newly released OTA fixes the screen accuracy issues, the Oneplus 3 will remain a 400USD phone, while the price of the Nexus 5X has gone down to the level of Moto G (2015), so the price performance is very good.AndyBandy - Tuesday, July 5, 2016 - link
Hi Brandon! Where did you place the color balance slider (from the display menu) when you measured the OnePlus 3 display calibration? Was it on the left side, or the on the right (the warmer side?)Vishalaestro - Saturday, October 1, 2016 - link
waiting for lenovo z2 plus review since it's way even cheaper than one plus 3 and has the same internals except camera.Ygor Cortes - Monday, February 20, 2017 - link
I really think that you should've used the phones' full potential (by turning low light features on (as HQ mode on the OnePlus 3 and HDR+ on the Nexus 5X and Nexus 6). You should've at least shown them on auto AND with the modes activated. Really good comparison though besides of that!